Yup! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_book-burning_incidents The U.S. also went to great lengths to try to stamp out native American culture, including language. MIT has recently helped recreate the native American language on Cape Cod, in one attempt to reverse a small portion of this history. At 07:16 AM 4/6/2014, Fred Lunnon wrote:

Maybe Mao's "great leap forward" (sic) observed a well-established custom after all --- who knew?