Author: |
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Susan Jacoby
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Title: |
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The Age of American Unreason |
Moochable copies: |
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No copies available |
Amazon suggests: |
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Recommended: |
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Topics: |
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Published in: |
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English |
Binding: |
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Hardcover |
Pages: |
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384 |
Date: |
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2008-02-12 |
ISBN: |
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0375423745 |
Publisher: |
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Pantheon |
Weight: |
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1.5 pounds |
Size: |
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1.38 x 6.45 x 9.54 inches |
Edition: |
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1 |
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Description: |
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Product Description
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.
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URL: |
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http://bookmooch.com/0375423745 |
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