, The New York Times; How the Humble Paperback Helped Win World War II
"The paperbacks were intended to help soldiers pass the time. But they were also meant to remind them what they were fighting for, and draw a sharp contrast between American ideals and Nazi book burnings.
That’s an aspect of the story that has only grown more resonant, amid today’s partisan battles over book bans. And Manning, for one, sees a clear lesson.
“During World War II, the American public came out very much one way,” she said. “And that was that there should be no restrictions on what people read."...
Books were seen not just as diversions, but as weapons in the fight for democracy. In American propaganda, the dedication to the free exchange of ideas was explicitly contrasted with Nazi book burnings. In a 1942 message to booksellers, President Franklin D. Roosevelt extolled freedom of expression, which was at the heart of his idea of the Four Freedoms. “No man and no force can take from the world the books that embody man’s eternal fight against tyranny,” he said.
But just how to get those weapons into soldiers hands was complicated. Shipping heavy books overseas was impractical. So in early 1943, the Council on Books in Wartime, a publishers’ group formed in 1942, approached Ray Trautman, the Army’s chief librarian, with the idea of producing special paperbacks for soldiers overseas. The result was the Armed Services Editions. which were designed to fit in either the breast or pants pocket of a standard-issue uniform."
