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Title details for Fantasyland by Kurt Andersen - Available

Fantasyland

How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History

by Kurt Andersen
Kurt Andersen
Audiobook
3 of 6 copies available
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3 of 6 copies available
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

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    September 5, 2017

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780525528159
      • File size: 564338 KB
      • Duration: 19:35:42

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Andersen traces the historical roots of what he calls the American obsession with defying reality. He provides a myriad of examples--from the magical thinking of religious founders who believed Satan walked among us to the marvels of the circus and carnival worlds and the contemporary political fantasies that got Donald Trump elected president. As narrator, Andersen owns the prose. He moves through the audiobook effectively, with a strong projection that at times communicates his frustration with the nation's moves away from reality-based living. Overall, his lightly throaty timbre holds the listener's attention. Though the production has a handful of vocal shifts indicating that retakes were necessary, his engaging energy makes listening enjoyable. L.E. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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