From the cover and title, I could tell that this book was right up my alley, and it was hard to resist when it came out. The content ranged from historical to current, I learned so much about the history of these “decency wars” that I did not know, and I was refreshed on the incidents I was well aware of. For instance, I had no clue that the Puritan religious culture of our country can actually be traced back to Henry VIII! And of course the wrongs of the religious right are expertly exposed.

When I first started reading this book, my husband noted that the thing he doesn’t like about non-fiction books is that they often expose a problem, but not the solution. I read non-fiction a lot, this doesn’t bother me, but he is a little bit correct. This is exactly why I was happy that this book devoted the last chapter to a solution for fighting this particular problem. The bullets weren’t a stretch to the things I already believe or already do, but what they did do was make me realize that there’s more I need to do (without feeling like I wasn’t already doing enough).

If you care a lot about anti-censorship, intellectual freedom, and the like, you will certainly enjoy this book.

Having been on a bit of a politics jag over the Labor Day weekend (What’s the Matter with Kansas, The Republican War on Science), Decency Wars was an obvious next book to read.

I’d seen Frederick Lane on Jon Stewart, and he seemed interesting. I’ve also been interested in censorship for many years, so I thought I’d give it a try.

Decency Wars turned out to be the best of the three books—not only does it do a fantastic job of covering the history and development of censorship and the concept of “decency” in America (including an overview of the evolution of American-style christianity, starting with Henry VIII!), but it also does an excellent job of bringing together and illuminating many of the elements making up today’s political and cultural landscape, and even has some good suggestions for ways to address the problems that we’re facing.