the AGE OF AMERICAN UNREASON: Dumbing Down & the Future of Democracy
by Jacoby, Susan
- Used
- good
- Hardcover
- Condition
- Good/Very Good
- ISBN 10
- 1905847661
- ISBN 13
- 9781905847662
- Seller
-
Ashbourne, Derbyshire, United Kingdom
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Also one of David Bowies top50 favorite books.
356pp with index.
Synopsis
Combining historical analysis with contemporary observation, Susan Jacoby dissects a new American cultural phenomenon--one that is at odds with our heritage of Enlightenment reason and with modern, secular knowledge and science. With mordant wit, she surveys an anti-rationalist landscape extending from pop culture to a pseudo-intellectual universe of "junk thought." Disdain for logic and evidence defines a pervasive malaise fostered by the mass media, triumphalist religious fundamentalism, mediocre public education, a dearth of fair-minded public intellectuals on the right and the left, and, above all, a lazy and credulous public.Jacoby offers an unsparing indictment of the American addiction to infotainment--from television to the Web--and cites this toxic dependency as the major element distinguishing our current age of unreason from earlier outbreaks of American anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism. With reading on the decline and scientific and historical illiteracy on the rise, an increasingly ignorant public square is dominated by debased media-driven language and received opinion.At this critical political juncture, nothing could be more important than recognizing the "overarching crisis of memory and knowledge" described in this impassioned, tough-minded book, which challenges Americans to face the painful truth about what the flights from reason has cost us as individuals and as a nation.From the Hardcover edition.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Pellegrino Books (GB)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 1845
- Title
- the AGE OF AMERICAN UNREASON
- Author
- Jacoby, Susan
- Book Condition
- Used - Good
- Jacket Condition
- Very Good
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Binding
- Hardcover
- ISBN 10
- 1905847661
- ISBN 13
- 9781905847662
- Publisher
- Old Street Publishing
- Place of Publication
- London
- Date Published
- 2008
- Keywords
- Religious Fervor, McCarthy, Richard Nixon, American knowledge,
- Size
- 8vo
Terms of Sale
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