Editing Book burning (section)

=== Burning of books and burying of scholars in China (213–210 BCE) ===
[[File:Killing the Scholars, Burning the Books.jpg|thumb|[[Burning of books and burying of scholars|''Killing the Scholars and Burning the Books'']] in 210–213 BC (18th-century Chinese painting)]]

The burning of books as a means of government control goes back to Shang Yang, who had exhorted Duke Xiao of Qin in the fourth century BCE to burn books.{{sfn|Polastron|2007|p=86}} In 213 BCE [[Qin Shi Huang]], the first emperor of the [[Qin dynasty]], ordered the [[burning of books and burying of scholars]] and in 210 BCE he supposedly ordered the [[premature burial]] of 460 Confucian scholars in order to stay on his throne.<ref name="smithsonian">{{cite news |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/brief-history-book-burning-printing-press-internet-archives-180964697/ |title=A Brief History of Book Burning, From the Printing Press to Internet Archives |last=Boissoneault |first=Lorraine |date=August 31, 2017 |website=Smithsonian Magazine |access-date=November 8, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170904210642/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/brief-history-book-burning-printing-press-internet-archives-180964697/ |archive-date=September 4, 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19922863 |title=Qin Shi Huang: The ruthless emperor who burned books |date=October 15, 2012 |website=BBC News |access-date=October 16, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220301030738/https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19922863 |archive-date=March 1, 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=2491 |title=The First Emperor of China Destroys Most Records of the Past Along with 460, or More, Scholars |website=History of Information |access-date=October 16, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210524154937/https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=2491 |archive-date=May 24, 2021}}</ref> Though the burning of books is well established, the [[Premature burial|live burial]] of scholars has been disputed by modern historians who doubt the details of the story, which first appeared more than a century later in the Han dynasty official [[Sima Qian]]'s ''[[Records of the Grand Historian]]''. The event caused the loss of many philosophical treatises of the [[Hundred Schools of Thought]], with only treatises on agriculture and medicine as well as a collection of divinations allowed to survive.{{sfn|Polastron|2007|pp=85–87}} Treatises which advocated the official philosophy of the government ("[[Legalism (Chinese philosophy)|legalism]]") survived.{{Citation needed|reason=|date=February 2025}}