Explore the Roots of Anti-Intellectualism in America
Dive into the complexities of the anti-intellectualism movement with these insightful reads. These books will help you unravel the reasons behind the allure of chaos and extreme ideas in today's society. Equip yourself with knowledge to better understand the world around you.
The Demon-Haunted World
474 pages
This book is a compelling exploration of the importance of scientific thinking in a world increasingly swayed by superstition and misinformation. Sagan's insights remind us of the critical need to question authority and seek truth.
Intellectuals and Society
496 pages
Sowell critiques how students often regurgitate complex discourses without true understanding, shedding light on the troubling dynamics of academic jargon and its implications.
Fashionable Nonsense
324 pages
This book humorously critiques the postmodernist approach to science, illustrating how even intellectuals struggle to grasp each other's ideas, making it a fascinating exploration of academic discourse.
The War on Science
Otto elaborates on the three fronts of the war on science, including ideological battles and the industrial war, making it a crucial read for understanding the current anti-intellectualism movement.
The Death of Expertise
273 pages
This book offers an interesting yet somewhat superficial look at the modern collapse of expertise, highlighting how the rise of accessible information has blurred the lines between professionals and laymen.
Anti-Intellectualism in American Life
465 pages
This book offers a fascinating historical perspective on the theme of anti-intellectualism in American culture, making it a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the complexities of American society.
Strangers in Their Own Land
305 pages
This book delves into the emotional factors that shape people's mindsets and decisions, highlighting how a lack of self-reflection contributes to today's polarization.
Post-Truth
242 pages
This book really breaks down the concept of post-truth and explores the factors that have shaped the current state of the U.S., including the impact of the 24-hour news cycle. It's a good, short read that provides valuable insights.
Suspicious Minds
305 pages
This book offers a fascinating exploration of the reasons behind our belief in conspiracy theories, making it a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the psychology of anti-intellectualism.
Fantasyland
482 pages
Kurt Andersen's 'Fantasyland' delves into the chaotic landscape of American culture, exploring how fantasy and reality have blurred over time. It's a compelling read for anyone interested in understanding the roots of contemporary societal issues.
Factfulness
318 pages
After reading this book, I realized how wrong I was about many of my beliefs. It reveals how media often highlights the negative aspects of the world, skewing our perception. This book helps challenge your views and offers a more accurate understanding of reality.
Amusing Ourselves to Death
210 pages
This book is still incredibly relevant today, as it explores how the shift from a literate culture to a televisual one has impacted our ability to understand complex ideas.
Against the Web
96 pages
Michael Brooks provides a sharp critique of the so-called Intellectual Dark Web, making it essential for understanding contemporary discourse.
Don't Burn This Book
237 pages
This book offers a critical perspective on the rise of pseudointellectualism, making it a thought-provoking read.
The Coddling of the American Mind
353 pages
New York Times Bestseller • Finalist for the 2018 National Book Critics Circle Award in Nonfiction • A New York Times Notable Book • Bloomberg Best Book of 2018 • One of Bill Gates’s Top Five Books of All Time “Their distinctive contribution to the higher-education debate is to meet safetyism on its own, psychological turf . . . Lukianoff and Haidt tell us that safetyism undermines the freedom of inquiry and speech that are indispensable to universities.” —Jonathan Marks, Commentary “The remedies the book outlines should be considered on college campuses, among parents of current and future students, and by anyone longing for a more sane society.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Something has been going wrong on many college campuses in the last few years. Speakers are shouted down. Students and professors say they are walking on eggshells and are afraid to speak honestly. Rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide are rising—on campus as well as nationally. How did this happen? First Amendment expert Greg Lukianoff and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation, show how the new problems on campus have their origins in three terrible ideas that have become increasingly woven into American childhood and education: What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker; always trust your feelings; and life is a battle between good people and evil people. These three Great Untruths contradict basic psychological principles about well-being and ancient wisdom from many cultures. Embracing these untruths—and the resulting culture of safetyism—interferes with young people’s social, emotional, and intellectual development. It makes it harder for them to become autonomous adults who are able to navigate the bumpy road of life. Lukianoff and Haidt investigate the many social trends that have intersected to promote the spread of these untruths. They explore changes in childhood such as the rise of fearful parenting, the decline of unsupervised, child-directed play, and the new world of social media that has engulfed teenagers in the last decade. They examine changes on campus, including the corporatization of universities and the emergence of new ideas about identity and justice. They situate the conflicts on campus within the context of America’s rapidly rising political polarization and dysfunction. This is a book for anyone who is confused by what is happening on college campuses today, or has children, or is concerned about the growing inability of Americans to live, work, and cooperate across party lines.
Educated
363 pages
This memoir offers a profound look at the impact of being uneducated in rural America, showcasing the author's journey and the influence of her parents' beliefs on her life and her siblings.
The Death of Expertise
273 pages
This book fits perfectly with the topic of anti-intellectualism, although the commenter hasn't read it yet to confirm its arguments.
Galapagos
338 pages
Galapagos addresses major themes while remaining funny and concise, showcasing Vonnegut's unique perspective.
Cat's Cradle
305 pages
Cat's Cradle tackles significant issues with humor and brevity, making it a thought-provoking yet entertaining read.
Player Piano
353 pages
Player Piano explores similar themes of anti-intellectualism and humanity, making it a compelling read for those interested in Vonnegut's insights.
Gaslighting America
291 pages
A CNN contributor, former Ted Cruz staffer, and "Never Trump" adherent reveals a shocking truth: Donald Trump’s lies and fabrications don’t horrify America—they enthrall us—and explains how we can avoid falling for them. "Can you believe what Donald Trump said?" In Gaslighting America, Carpenter breaks down Trump’s formula, showing why it’s practically foolproof, playing his victims, the media, the Democrats, and the Republican fence-sitters perfectly. She traces how this tactic started with Nixon, gained traction with Bill Clinton, and exploded under Trump. If you think Trump is driving you crazy, it’s because he is. Now, in this urgent book, she explains how to withstand the fire. Where some people see lies, Trump’s fierce followers see something different. A commitment to winning at all costs; there is nothing he could say that would erode their support at long as it’s in the name of taking down his political enemies. His opponents on the left and right continue to act as if his fake narratives and conspiracy theories will bring him down, when in fact, they are the ruses that raised him up. As a conservative former staffer to a competing presidential campaign, Amanda Carpenter witnessed her fellow Republicans fall in line behind Trump. As a political commentator, she was publicly smeared by one of his supporters on live television without a shred of evidence supporting the allegations. Slowly, she watched her entire party succumb to Trump and become defenders of his tactics, and Gaslighting America may be the only hope to bring them back to reality.
Why We're Polarized
213 pages
This objective and well-researched book provides insights into today's political climate and explores how identities are intertwined with misinformation, helping readers feel more grounded amidst the chaos.
The Bible, Book by Book
435 pages
An essential reference guide for all Bible users—whether students or churchgoers—enabling anyone to get the most out of the Bible and its messages. Reading the bible has never been easier or through a more analytical eye. The Bible, Book by Book helps not only to read the bible, but encourages readers to knowledgeably understand and interpret the scriptures. The King James Holy Bible contains 39 books in the Old Testament, 27 books in the New Testament, and 14 books of the Apocrypha. This book presents each and every book of the Bible, with a short essential story synopsis, followed by a commentary for study and understanding. Finally, each book has a chapter by chapter summary in an easy to use table form. Biblical scripture offers many pearls of wisdom, and in this new reading, some of the most beautifully written books are analyzed in depth. Story, analysis, and commentary are covered on the events and lessons in each book to give readers the big picture.
The Age of Entitlement
352 pages
A major American intellectual and “one of the right’s most gifted and astute journalists” (The New York Times Book Review) makes the historical case that the reforms of the 1960s, reforms intended to make the nation more just and humane, left many Americans feeling alienated, despised, misled—and ready to put an adventurer in the White House. Christopher Caldwell has spent years studying the liberal uprising of the 1960s and its unforeseen consequences and his conclusion is this: even the reforms that Americans love best have come with costs that are staggeringly high—in wealth, freedom, and social stability—and that have been spread unevenly among classes and generations. Caldwell reveals the real political turning points of the past half-century, taking you on a roller-coaster ride through Playboy magazine, affirmative action, CB radio, leveraged buyouts, iPhones, Oxycotin, Black Lives Matter, and internet cookies. In doing so, he shows that attempts to redress the injustices of the past have left Americans living under two different ideas of what it means to play by the rules. Essential, timely, hard to put down, The Age of Entitlement “is an eloquent and bracing book, full of insight” (New York magazine) about how the reforms of the past fifty years gave the country two incompatible political systems—and drove it toward conflict.
1984
309 pages
75th ANNIVERSARY EDITION “Orwell saw, to his credit, that the act of falsifying reality is only secondarily a way of changing perceptions. It is, above all, a way of asserting power.”—The New Yorker In 1984, London is a grim city in the totalitarian state of Oceania where Big Brother is always watching you and the Thought Police can practically read your mind. Winston Smith is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party. Together with his beloved Julia, he hazards his life in a deadly match against the powers that be. Lionel Trilling said of Orwell’s masterpiece, “1984 is a profound, terrifying, and wholly fascinating book. It is a fantasy of the political future, and like any such fantasy, serves its author as a magnifying device for an examination of the present.” Though the year 1984 now exists in the past, Orwell’s novel remains an urgent call for the individual willing to speak truth to power.
White Trash
498 pages
This book does a great job discussing and contextualizing the history of class in America, making it a compelling read for anyone interested in understanding this phenomenon.
Hillbilly Elegy
166 pages
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "A riveting book."—The Wall Street Journal "Essential reading."—David Brooks, New York Times From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate, a powerful account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town that offers a broader, probing look at the struggles of America’s white working class Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The decline of this group, a demographic of our country that has been slowly disintegrating over forty years, has been reported on with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck. The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.’s grandparents were “dirt poor and in love,” and moved north from Kentucky’s Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually their grandchild (the author) would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of their success in achieving generational upward mobility. But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that this is only the short, superficial version. Vance’s grandparents, aunt, uncle, sister, and, most of all, his mother, struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, and were never able to fully escape the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. Vance piercingly shows how he himself still carries around the demons of their chaotic family history. A deeply moving memoir with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is the story of how upward mobility really feels. And it is an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country.
