Read Fantasyland How America Went Haywire A 500Year History Kurt Andersen 9780812978902 Books
Read Fantasyland How America Went Haywire A 500Year History Kurt Andersen 9780812978902 Books
Download As PDF : Fantasyland How America Went Haywire A 500Year History Kurt Andersen 9780812978902 Books
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “The single most important explanation, and the fullest explanation, of how Donald Trump became president of the United States . . . nothing less than the most important book that I have read this year.”—Lawrence O’Donnell
How did we get here?
In this sweeping, eloquent history of America, Kurt Andersen shows that what’s happening in our country today—this post-factual, “fake news” moment we’re all living through—is not something new, but rather the ultimate expression of our national character. America was founded by wishful dreamers, magical thinkers, and true believers, by hucksters and their suckers. Fantasy is deeply embedded in our DNA.
Over the course of five centuries—from the Salem witch trials to Scientology to the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, from P. T. Barnum to Hollywood and the anything-goes, wild-and-crazy sixties, from conspiracy theories to our fetish for guns and obsession with extraterrestrials—our love of the fantastic has made America exceptional in a way that we've never fully acknowledged. From the start, our ultra-individualism was attached to epic dreams and epic fantasies—every citizen was free to believe absolutely anything, or to pretend to be absolutely anybody. With the gleeful erudition and tell-it-like-it-is ferocity of a Christopher Hitchens, Andersen explores whether the great American experiment in liberty has gone off the rails.
Fantasyland could not appear at a more perfect moment. If you want to understand Donald Trump and the culture of twenty-first-century America, if you want to know how the lines between reality and illusion have become dangerously blurred, you must read this book.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
“This is a blockbuster of a book. Take a deep breath and dive in.”—Tom Brokaw
“[An] absorbing, must-read polemic . . . a provocative new study of America’s cultural history.”—Newsday
“Compelling and totally unnerving.”—The Village Voice
“A frighteningly convincing and sometimes uproarious picture of a country in steep, perhaps terminal decline that would have the founding fathers weeping into their beards.”—The Guardian
“This is an important book—the indispensable book—for understanding America in the age of Trump.”—Walter Isaacson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Leonardo da Vinci
Read Fantasyland How America Went Haywire A 500Year History Kurt Andersen 9780812978902 Books
"Kurt Andersen is really on to something--especially in the current climate, where facts are too often dismissed in favor of uninformed opinions and fanciful beliefs.
Fantasyland is, as the subtitle says, a 500-year history of the United States, recounted through a particular prism, and I find the thesis convincing and compelling. Andersen's premise is that from colonial days on, America, unlike Europe, has been shaped by people who have been divorced from reality, whether through religious fanaticism (think the Puritans) or prospects of riches (think the Roanoke colony or Jamestown settlers). And that tenacious grip on fantasy over fact has largely guided our nation's history, with new examples emerging in every era. In the aggregate, this elevation of the impossible, the absurd and the unsubstantiated, has repeatedly destroyed lives and gotten us to the sorry place we are today, where the holder of the highest office in the land routinely lies and gets away with it.
Fantasyland won't sit well with people who are deeply religious, as some of the other reviews suggest. Andersen takes repeated and precise aim at mainstream religion, as well as fringe sects like Mormonism and Scientology, He traces how various extreme elements and beliefs have come to influence politics, culture and education, among others. And he doesn't cut New Agey sorts any slack, either. But for those of us who reside mainly in the reality-based community, who believe in science and empirical evidence and view religious documents like the Bible as metaphorical, not literal, it is an important and valuable analysis of how we have come to the current pass.
Andersen is a gifted writer, and the book is often entertaining, although also alarming, especially as the narrative creeps up on the current disaster-in-chief and those who continue to support him, against all evidence. It is also a bit scholarly, in that he documents his sources, and sometimes gives more detail than you might want on certain topics.
But if you care about America and wonder how we've reached the point where intelligent, educated people nonetheless willfully ignore evidence and the weight of science, then Fantasyland will likely shed some light.
Five stars because it's a well-written and important book."
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Fantasyland How America Went Haywire A 500Year History Kurt Andersen 9780812978902 Books Reviews :
Fantasyland How America Went Haywire A 500Year History Kurt Andersen 9780812978902 Books Reviews
- I am a retired Southern Baptist minister who has watched the convention be taken over by fundamentalists who call themselves conservatives. Science is denied, as one of our seminary presidents proudly claim he is a recent earth creationist. This book hits the nail straight on the head that we need to accept the blame as Christians for the place our country is in today. I have tried to stem the tide of willful ignorance with no avail. I highly recommend this book for those interested in an honest look at our country. I especially recommend this book for Christian ministers to hopefully wake some of us up to what damage we are doing.
- Kurt Andersen is really on to something--especially in the current climate, where facts are too often dismissed in favor of uninformed opinions and fanciful beliefs.
Fantasyland is, as the subtitle says, a 500-year history of the United States, recounted through a particular prism, and I find the thesis convincing and compelling. Andersen's premise is that from colonial days on, America, unlike Europe, has been shaped by people who have been divorced from reality, whether through religious fanaticism (think the Puritans) or prospects of riches (think the Roanoke colony or Jamestown settlers). And that tenacious grip on fantasy over fact has largely guided our nation's history, with new examples emerging in every era. In the aggregate, this elevation of the impossible, the absurd and the unsubstantiated, has repeatedly destroyed lives and gotten us to the sorry place we are today, where the holder of the highest office in the land routinely lies and gets away with it.
Fantasyland won't sit well with people who are deeply religious, as some of the other reviews suggest. Andersen takes repeated and precise aim at mainstream religion, as well as fringe sects like Mormonism and Scientology, He traces how various extreme elements and beliefs have come to influence politics, culture and education, among others. And he doesn't cut New Agey sorts any slack, either. But for those of us who reside mainly in the reality-based community, who believe in science and empirical evidence and view religious documents like the Bible as metaphorical, not literal, it is an important and valuable analysis of how we have come to the current pass.
Andersen is a gifted writer, and the book is often entertaining, although also alarming, especially as the narrative creeps up on the current disaster-in-chief and those who continue to support him, against all evidence. It is also a bit scholarly, in that he documents his sources, and sometimes gives more detail than you might want on certain topics.
But if you care about America and wonder how we've reached the point where intelligent, educated people nonetheless willfully ignore evidence and the weight of science, then Fantasyland will likely shed some light.
Five stars because it's a well-written and important book. - Whoa! What a romp through American history this book is. The author begins in 1517 with Martin Luther's 95 theses and brings the reader through to the Trump era, persuasively arguing that Americans have a unique susceptibility to the fanciful and the false. In that vein, he dubs the United States "Fantasyland." Our early settlers were both looking for elusive but alluring gold and riches, and for the freedom to believe in religious doctrines that could seem fantastical myths to some. ""The first English-speaking Americans tended to be the more wide-eyed and desperately wishful," he writes. And from that state of being, he says, springs our national character as true believers in the false, bizarre and fanciful.
Seemingly every wacky episode in American history is included in Mr. Andersen's book. You'll find the Salem witch hunts of old, and the modern witch hunts accusing day care workers of ritual Satanic child abuse. Explorers looking for gold, and modern investors falling for get-rich schemes are in here. Gun rights advocates who fantasize about everyday citizens blowing criminals and terrorists to kingdom-come get a chapter. The beliefs of religious systems are a constant underlying theme of the book, and politicians and their antics are fully examined under the author's microscope. "Squishies, cynics and believers," the author calls us.
For the most part, the author takes a neutral tone as he examines his fellow Americans (although his disdain for people of faith becomes tiresome). But toward the end of the book, he starts to insert himself into the narrative. Bringing up Jodi Dean, a political scientist and professor at Hobart and William Smith, he calls out her "enthusiasm for untruths and her contempt for reason." "Dean celebrates practically every attitude and approach that appalls me," he writes. From then on, I noticed more of a judgmental attitude on the part of Mr. Andersen. I'm fine with him getting all judgy; it's just something I noticed. And I fully agree with his observation -- by examining the adult population that is besotted by Disney World -- that American adults have become increasingly infantalized, with their penchant for Halloween dress-up and their preference for created worlds rather than the real thing. (My spouse and I once took family members to England, and as we walked the streets of Castle Combe, surrounded on all sides by ancient, thatched-roof cottages, half-timbered houses and pretty English gardens, they exclaimed, "It's just like Epcot!" Sigh.)
In structure, the book is like 46 condensed theses strung together into book form. That's not a bad thing. It makes it easy to read and to consider the thoughts of each brief chapter. And, fortunately, the author is a much breezier writer than your standard issue academic. His prose is direct and easy to read, and he quotes other writers, philosophers, theologians and politicians extensively, which brings a breadth to his narrative that I appreciated. So, my fellow Americans, dig in and enjoy your whirlwind tour through Fantasyland!
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