Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History

Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER â€¢ â€œThe 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.â€â€”Lawrence Oâ€™Donnell

How did we get here?

In this sweeping, eloquent history of America, Kurt Andersen shows that whatâ€™s happening in our country todayâ€”this post-factual, â€œfake newsâ€ moment weâ€™re all living throughâ€”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 centuriesâ€”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 extraterrestrialsâ€”our love of the fantasticÂ 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 fantasiesâ€”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.

FantasylandÂ 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

â€œThis is a blockbuster of a book. Take a deep breath and dive in.â€â€”Tom Brokaw

â€œ[An] absorbing, must-read polemic . . . a provocative new study of Americaâ€™s cultural history.â€â€”Newsday

â€œCompelling and totally unnerving.â€â€”The Village Voice

â€œA frighteningly convincing and sometimes uproarious picture of a country in steep, perhaps terminal decline that would have the founding fathers weeping into their beards.â€â€”The Guardian

â€œThis is an important bookâ€”the indispensable bookâ€”for understanding America in the age of Trump.â€â€”Walter Isaacson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Leonardo da Vinci
Country USA
Manufacturer Random House
Binding Hardcover
ItemPartNumber YES3535072
ReleaseDate 2017-09-05
UnitCount 1
EANs 9781400067213

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Random House
Binding	Hardcover
ItemPartNumber	YES3535072
ReleaseDate	2017-09-05
UnitCount	1
EANs	9781400067213

Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History

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