That Book Is Dangerous!: How Moral Panic, Social Media, and the Culture Wars Are Remaking Publishing

An alarming exposé of the new challenges to literary freedom in the age of social media--when anyone with an identity and an internet connection can be a censor.

In That Book Is Dangerous!, Adam Szetela investigates how well-intentioned and often successful efforts to diversify American literature have also produced serious problems for literary freedom. Although progressives are correct to be focused on right-wing attempts at legislative censorship, Szetela argues for attention to the ways that left-wing censorship controls speech within the publishing industry itself.

The author draws on interviews with presidents and vice presidents at the Big Five publishers, literary agents at the most prestigious agencies, award-winning authors, editors, marketers, sensitivity readers, and other industry professionals to examine the new publishing landscape.

What he finds is unsettling: mandatory sensitivity reads; morality clauses in author contracts; even censorship of "dangerous" books in the name of antiracism, feminism, and other forms of social justice. These changes to acquisition practices, editing policies, and other aspects of literary culture are a direct outgrowth of the culture of public outcries on X, Goodreads, Change.org, and other online platforms, where users accuse authors--justifiably or not--of racism, sexism, homophobia, and other transgressions. But rather than genuinely address the economic inequities of literary production, this current moral crusade over literature serves only to entrench the status quo. "While the right is remaking the world in its image," he writes, "the left is standing in a circular firing squad."

Compellingly argued and incisively written, the book is a much-needed wake-up call for anyone who cares about reading, writing, and the publication of books--as well as the generations of young readers we are raising.

Author: Adam Szetela
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 08/12/2025
Pages: 288
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.11lbs
Size: 9.21h x 6.32w x 1.06d
ISBN: 9780262049856


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 06/23/2025
Library Journal 07/01/2025 pg. 66

About the Author
Adam Szetela earned his Ph.D. in English from the Department of Literatures at Cornell University. Before that, he was a visiting fellow in the Department of History at Harvard University. He writes for The Washington Post, The Guardian, Newsweek, and other publications.