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 … 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
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Encourages, if not forces, one to look at America history from the author’s point of view, which then challenges on to reexamine one’s own.
While some of the liberties taken on our history were a bit of a stretch in this book, they were very few for which I had a problem. And those were mostly of observation by Mr. Andersen and he apologetically admits it. Overall, the book is most enlightening and offers the telling truth that ‘winners write the history’,. He offers that the more false history is retold, the more it becomes the new truth, or as some would say, alternative facts. From the false perceptions of the cowboy, western expansion, religious revivals, immigration and the hippie movement, many events and eras of what we thought happened, but didn’t. At least not the way it’s portrayed by those with an agenda, and the power to perpetuate a different narrative. Mr. Andersen present the facts but doesn’t judge and only allows the reader to make his/her own conclusion. A great read.
It explains the mess we are in…with wit, insight and persuasion.
Great insights with which you may or may not agree. Stuff you didn’t learn in school. KM
This will forever change your view of history…and your unfounded beliefs. This book undid me.
Somewhat accurate but cynical look at the Merican tendency toward willingness to believe anything. Lots of examples, repetative.
After reading this book, I’ve come to understand that Trump is the logical outcome of our collective trip down the rabbit hole or through the looking glass. I can remember everything Kurt Anderson says about the 60’s because I came of age in the 60’s. However, I always managed to stay grounded in reality. For anyone who doesn’t understand how we came to have Trump as a President, this is a necessary read. Trump is the symptom of a much larger disease infecting this country, the increasing inability to segregate reality from fiction. I find I can’t even blame the people who voted for him because how do you stay grounded in an environment that is every day becoming more fictionalized?
A fascinating look at American history unlike the
more traditional writing he really makes one think of the illusions and ideas we hold of our beginnings and the groups that have influenced us to our present time
Important work. It explains a lot about our tendency to believe in conspiracy theories. It could be our downfall.
It was kind of interesting. I have to say that the author kind of cherry picks his history in order to maintain his thesis. Some is good, some not so much. Worth a read, but it would help if the reader was well versed in American history so that they would know when the author is stretching things. Still, worth a read.
Very difficult to read. Disjointed – jumps around chronologically. A lot of apparently coined words. Reads more like a masters thesis than a book.
This guy does a great job of arguing black is white and white is black….
Easy to read informative observation of our Country.
Interesting view of how America’s history going back centuries made us susceptible to Donald Trump’s rhetoric. Andersen suggests that from the very beginning we have been populated by people trying to create something new and different and that every generation has their own unique hucksters and visionaries. He spends a little too much time in detailing previous centuries for my taste but he does provide a perspective on our early history that is quite different from that presented in most history classes