While modern U.S. society contains several similarities with the culture in Fahrenheit 451 -- the popularity of reality TV and the influence of government on news being the most obvious -- it is different in many ways. For example, there is no ban on books in the U.S., and in fact books are less censored than many other forms of entertainment. Books can contain words and images that are censored on television and in movies, and cannot be banned unless they contain explicitly illegal material, such as bomb recipes. People in the U.S. are becoming more and more informed and involved in politics, more than in the last several decades, and certainly far more than in the novel, where people are entirely unaware of a war that threatens their lives. Finally, for a superficial difference, firemen in the U.S. still race to fires, put them out, and save lives, instead of washing buildings with kerosene and igniting them.