First published 2017
Kurt Andersen argues that America's current struggles with misinformation and conspiracy thinking reflect deep patterns in the national character stretching back five hundred years. He traces how the country was built by dreamers, con artists, and believers who created a culture where fantasy and reality blur together. Andersen examines episodes from the Salem witch trials through Scientology, from P.T. Barnum's spectacles to Hollywood's illusions, from the 1960s counterculture to modern UFO obsessions. He connects these moments to show how American individualism gave every citizen permission to believe anything they wanted or reinvent themselves completely. The author writes with sharp wit and extensive research as he investigates whether America's experiment in total freedom has created a society unmoored from shared truth. The book reveals how the same impulses that made America innovative and dynamic also made it vulnerable to delusion and manipulation.
Genres: history, american, politics, non-fiction, 21st-century, american-history
Vibes: extensive-research, sharp-wit, thought-provoking
Tropes: investigative-journalism, social-commentary
Setting: America, Salem
Period: 500 Years, 1960s
462 pages · Hardcover · Random House