Fantasyland How America Went Haywire a 500-year History Review
 First edition | |
| Writer | Kurt Andersen |
|---|---|
| Country | United states of america |
| Language | English language |
| Published | 2017 |
| Publisher | Random House |
| ISBN | 978-1400067213 |
| Website | world wide web |
Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire; A 500-Twelvemonth History is an American not-fiction book written by Kurt Andersen and published in 2017. Fantasyland debuted on the New York Times bestseller list at number 3[i] and at number five on the Washington Post and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists (hardcover non-fiction).[two] [3] Andersen has said that he had been thinking almost the topic of Americans becoming "besides all-around to belief" for several years, only that the derisive term "reality-based community" was "a wake-up call" that motivated him to write Fantasyland.[4]
Summary [edit]
Fantasyland is organized into six sections, detailing the spread of magical thinking throughout the country's history to illustrate how the country of the nation today is an extension of fundamental American characteristics. Andersen describes the overall arc of the book:
America was created past true believers and passionate dreamers, by hucksters and their suckers—which over the grade of four centuries has made u.s. susceptible to fantasy...In other words: mix epic individualism with extreme organized religion; mix show business with everything else; let all that steep and simmer for a few centuries; run it through the anything-goes 1960s and the Internet age; the outcome is the America we inhabit today, where reality and fantasy are weirdly and dangerously blurred and commingled.
Role I: The Conjuring of America: 1517–1789 [edit]
Fantasyland contends that the primeval European settlers in what would become the United States were golden-crazed adventurers (Jamestown) and God-crazed cults (Puritans and Pilgrims). Office I covers extreme religious figures such as; Anne Hutchinson, Roger Williams, John Wesley, George Whitefield, and Jonathan Edwards; and events such equally the Salem witch trials and the First Bang-up Awakening. It points out that the emerging Age of Enlightenment with its accent on liberty of thought "liberated people to believe anything whatsoever".[5]
Part Ii: United states of america of Astonishing: The 1800s [edit]
The 19th century saw a mythologizing of the state's founding and founders, and a proliferation of religious sects including; Ann Lee and the Shakers, Joseph Smith and the Mormons, Mary Baker Eddy and Christian Science. Boosted religious extremes included the Second Great Awakening, a huge camp meeting at Cane Ridge, the Restoration Motion, and stop-of-earth prophecies. Occult beliefs, such every bit the Fox sisters, were mutual. The century introduced homeopathy; medical fads, and snake oil peddlers; mesmerism, phrenology, and hydropathy; Dr. Thomas' Eclectric Oil, William Rockefeller Sr.'due south elixirs, and Brandreth's pills. Andersen discusses the "get rich quick" idealism of the California Gold Blitz and westward expansion. Self-serving fictions on both sides of the Civil War grew in popularity, equally did pastoral fantasies (Daniel Boone, Henry David Thoreau). Steam-powered presses spawned large-circulation newspapers and magazines with loose standards of accuracy and truth for both advertising and reporting (Great Moon Hoax). Fantastical entertainments were spawned: P.T. Barnum and his American Museum, Hamlin'due south Wizard Oil Visitor and Kickapoo Indian Medicine Company, and Buffalo Bill Cody and his travelling Wild West show.
Role III: A Long Arc Bending Toward Reason: 1900–1960 [edit]
Reason began fighting back: the Pure Food and Drug Act was passed; Jacobson v. Massachusetts found for mandatory vaccinations; the NAACP was founded; Fourth dimension laid a course for the American Century; Gilbert Seldes's The Stammering Century was "a rationalist's good-riddance epitaph for the terminal vestiges of America's ridiculous magical-thinking 1800s"; debunking of spiritualism was a pop pastime; the ACLU was formed.
On the other side, there were brief conspiracy panics (confronting Germans and and then against Communists which and so edged into anti-Semitism, with Henry Ford becoming a fan of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion). Nostalgia for Antebellum Southward spread; The Birth of a Nation was released; a "Black America" show that recreated an idealized version of slave life toured the country; and the Ku Klux Klan was revived.
Fundamentalism in religion grew in popularity: Baton Dominicus, Cyrus Scofield, Dwight Moody, Scopes Trial, Holiness movement, Father Divine, and Aimee Semple McPherson. Movies and the fantasy-industrial complex (example: State of war of the Worlds) became more than prevalent, bringing a greater corporeality of fiction into people's lives. There was an explosion in advertising and modern celebrity civilisation. The spread of suburbia (Broadacre City) provided a bucolic fantasy. Other developments that encouraged magical thinking were boob tube; Las Vegas, Disneyland; Playboy; the Beat Generation; Scientology, McCarthyism; Billy Graham; The Power of Positive Thinking; Oral Roberts; orgone therapy; and psychotropic drugs and tranquilizers.
Office Four: Big Bang: The 1960s and '70s [edit]
The 1960s and '70s were a time when bits of everyday life were existence replaced with bits of everyday fiction, and there was a veritable explosion of woo-based ideologies taking hold: Alan Watts, Transcendental Meditation, Esalen, New Historic period, The Myth of Mental Illness, Jane Roberts; ESP, mysticism, and magic; UFOs and aliens, Chariots of the Gods; The Greening of America, The Electric Kool-Aid Acrid Test, The Secret Life of Plants, and Madness and Civilization. The books Against Method: Outline of an Unconventional Theory of Knowledge, and The Structure of Scientific Revolutions encouraged skepticism of scientific discipline.
Woodstock, the Counterculture, and hippies encouraged costless thinking and finding one's own truth. The U.S. was fascinated with the spiritual adventures of Carlos Castaneda. Religious developments included the Jesus motility, the Charismatic movement, The Genesis Flood, Institute for Creation Research, and the rerelease of the Scofield Reference Bible. None Dare Call It Treason and None Dare Call Information technology Conspiracy helped launch a new explosion in conspiracy theories. Both fundamentalist and counterculture homeschooling became popular. Fuzzing the line between reality and magical thinking were laugh tracks, fantastical TV shows (The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, Dark Shadows, My Favorite Martian, Batman), and a wider spread of science fiction and fantasy. Attention to satanism was renewed.
People could escape their mundane lives in living history theme parks, Civil State of war reenactments, and Renaissance fairs; through Dungeons and Dragons, fan fiction, and Comic Con. Celebrity obsession grew even greater. In that location was a overabundance of theming: restaurants, malls, and architecture. State lotteries encouraged magical thinking. Erotica and pornography became commonplace, and there was a vast increment in hair coloring and corrective surgery.
Part V: Fantasyland Scales: From the 1980s Through the Plough of the Century [edit]
The strange had become unremarkable and the astonishing had become ubiquitous. Make-believe became part of ordinary life.
Reality TV was ubiquitous and there was a huge jump in popularity of pro-wrestling. Even more extreme forms of cosmetic surgery became common. Casinos spread exterior of Nevada to nearly every state. Escapists could relish Burning Man, live action part-playing, fantasy sports, and fantasy camps for adults. The state had a Hollywood president who ofttimes referred to the apocalypse, a first lady's astrologer, and voodoo economics; politics became amusement.
The FCC fairness doctrine was eliminated, ushering in Rush Limbaugh and Flim-flam News. New conspiracy theories took hold, and there was renewed interest in occultism, fringe science, and angels. Megachurches were launched and there was a growth of evangelicals. Approaching Hoofbeats: Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Coming Antichrist, the Last Days Handbook, the Left Behind serial all spoke to a growing fascination with the Apocalypse. School districts proposed the teaching of Creationism and intelligent design. There was a growing increase in beliefs in prosperity gospel and spiritual warfare and New Age notions such equally crystals, chakras, Reiki, and channeling. Oprah recommended The Secret and Dr. Oz. The National Middle for Complementary and Integrative Health funded inquiry into areas such as homeopathy and long-distance spiritual healing. There was an expansion of relativism. Cable TV showed documentaries on mermaids, zombies, ghosts, and alien abductions. Home-schooling doubled, by and large because of religious beliefs. Interest in survivalism and preppers surged, leading to American Redoubt.
The Internet enabled every person admission to every believable idea and interest, connecting them to agreeing people. "Delusional ideas and magical thinking flood from the private sphere into the public, become so pervasive and deeply rooted, and then normal, that they impact anybody."[half dozen]
Office Vi: The Problem with Fantasyland: From the 1980s to the Present and Across [edit]
Fantasyland contends that two changes in American social club led to mod tipping points: the counterculture of the 1960s and the Information Age. The internet and www permitted all fashion of ideas to bypass the traditional gatekeepers of information dissemination. Past discrediting authority and its validating institutions, people have been taught that zip tin exist trusted.
During these decades, there was a rash of child abduction panics. Recovered-retention therapy raised fears of Satanic ritual abuse. There was a vast increase in the number of dissociative identity disorder diagnoses. People engaged in past life regressions. Communion: A True Story brought conflicting abductions to the wider public, and more experiencers shared their stories, encouraged by UFOlogy, talk radio, and Art Bell.
Conspiracy theories spread about the Illuminati, New World Lodge, Fusion paranoia, Agenda 21, birtherism, nine/xi, Shariah: The Threat to America, GMOs; vaccinations, and The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Hereafter. The X-Files were wildly popular. Alex Jones's radio show is syndicated nationally. Fundamentalist Christianity is amplified in the GOP and Libertarianism becomes more popular. Domestic dog-whistle politics are more blatant. The alt-right enters the political conversation. There is a greater button for dominionism, and opposition to whatever gun restrictions by the NRA. People participate in MMORPGs, virtual reality and augmented reality, and MilSim. A fantasy-tinged suburb is created in Celebration, Florida. Investors engage in irrational exuberance and economic magical thinking. Extreme skepticism of the press is widespread every bit people lose immunity to false data. Andersen then analyzes the election of Donald Trump within the greater context of America's descent into a mindset in which facts are relative and at that place is no shared reality.
Reception [edit]
R. Fritze, writing in Choice Reviews, recommends Fantasyland equally both compelling and entertaining, and concludes, "Not everyone will like what Andersen has to say, only he has written a fine piece of work of history that convincingly explains how we got to where we are today."[7] In the New York Times Book Review, Hanna Rosin admires how Andersen weaves historical threads that help make sense of the 2016 United States presidential election, only points out that he "goes for wide rather than deep."[eight]
In the Boston Earth, Michael Upchurch criticizes the lack of bibliography, simply says "Fantasyland offers a clear, persuasive historical framework" and calls the prose "lucid, supple, and powered by paradox".[ix] Carlos Lozada declared Fantasyland the "most irritating book I read this year" in 2017, calling it "more fleeting and glib than helpful and revealing",[10] and takes exception to what he considers Andersen'due south "contempt for people of faith".[eleven]
References [edit]
- ^ Cowles, Gregory (September fifteen, 2017). "Alice Water'southward Grilled Cheese Is Not Like Yours and Mine". New York Times.
- ^ "Washington Mail bestsellers: September 17, 2017". The Washington Post. September 15, 2017.
- ^ "Best-sellers from Publishers Weekly". The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, Washington). September 17, 2017. p. D7.
- ^ Borrelli, Christopher (September 12, 2017). "'Fantasyland' author fears loss of shared facts in U.S." Chicago Tribune. pp. four–one, 4–half-dozen.
- ^ Andersen, Kurt. Fantasyland. p. 52.
- ^ Andersen, Kurt. Fantasyland. p. 321.
- ^ Fritze, R. (January 2018). "Andersen, Kurt. Fantasyland". Pick: Electric current Reviews for Academic Libraries. 55 (5).
- ^ Rosin, Hannah (September x, 2017). "National Delusions". New York Times.
- ^ Upchurch, Michael (November 12, 2017). "Simulated news is zilch new". The Boston Globe. pp. N14-fifteen.
- ^ Lozada, Carlos (November xix, 2017). "My Memorable books of 2017". The Washington Mail. p. B8.
- ^ Lozada, Carlos (September 24, 2017). "Is Trump mentally ill? Or is America?". The Washington Post. p. B5.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasyland:_How_America_Went_Haywire
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