Harvard University professor Robert Darnton's book Censors at Work is a fascinating exploration of how censorship works in different contexts and times. The author focuses on three subjects that are far from each other: royalist France in the 18th century, colonial India in the 19th century, and East Germany at the turn of the 1980s–1990s. The author uses numerous examples to trace exactly how censorship worked, what the censors themselves thought about their work, and how they interacted with the book market, including the “black” one. In the book you can find colorful portraits of many representatives of the “shadow” book world - from semi-literate regulars of Parisian book markets to Bengali librarians who speak dozens of languages. Robert Darnton shows how censorship contributed not only to the cultural, but also to the economic and political life of society. Censorship required the coordinated work of many people, the interweaving of destinies and interests of which could resemble a fascinating detective novel.