Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History Hardcover – 16 Sept. 2017

Virtually read it in one sitting. All the more powerful for having a 500 year run up to his dissection of the American love affair with, and addiction to, fantasy, conspiracy, and hucksterism, which, when combined, gave the world not only Trump, and the gangster demagogues, but also the right-on narcissists of his critics. Very wittily and eruditely written, with scores of fantastic examples and individual narrative threads, many of which were entirely new to me. Cannot recommend it highly enough. Was condensed into a fab Atlantic thinkpiece a couple of months ago.

This looks like a good read, and indeed the brief passages I have sampled are more serious than I was expecting, given its other reviews. My main beef however is the quality of the product. I got the paperback edition, with the inverted American top hat on it, and not only is the paper quality cheap but the font is small and very very feint. Maybe it's because I am over 60 so my eyesight is not the best, but the other books I bought at the same time shout out at me off their pages, so clear, large and black-and-white (as opposed to silvery-grey and white) are their typefaces. I can't read more than a few sentences of this book at a time without having to pause while I blink and try to refocus, so blurry do its pages look.

As another reviewer has said, this book is printed on very cheap paper using a very small, pale, font which makes it extremely difficult to read. I did go to the trouble of trying to ascertain what font had been used but the book is silent on this point. In the end I gave up the struggle after the first fifty pages or so. There are far better, more incisive books about America than this one.

Wonderful read if you're an American--also if you hate America. Engagingly written, well researched, and the criticism is while sometimes overwrought, usually accurate.

I did not realise the author would attribute so many of America's ails to fundamentalist Christianity but having read the book I can certainly agree with the author. I am currently halfway through 'Fear' by Bob Woodward and, taking the two together they paint a frightening picture of incompetence and mediocrity in the US government.

An interesting foray into the rise and rise of irrational thought in the USA over decades and theories about why it has happened. Good style and imaginative analysis but let down a bit by being overlong and padded.

if this was written by anyone else but an american author, i might give zero marks. this is a great insight analysis into the cousins eternal conumdrum. how explain them? kurt anderson gives it a very decent try.

Well written,

Reality, to an American, is whatever he damn well says it is.Kurt's book is an entertaining, wonderfully-written exploration of this thesis. He makes the case that this attitude is the core of what it is to be American. Is it?America is, by far, the most "Christian" nation on Earth. Christianity is the ultimate conspiracy theory whose heroes are lionized precisely because they challenge "the establishment". They find their own truth. They know it's true because of "faith", not facts. By nature of its internal logic, it tends to become "establishment", then endlessly spin-off "anti-establishment" clones of itself, each "crazier than thou". Ultimately, we wind up with Mormonism, Scientology, and President Donald Trump.The account makes sense as far as it goes, but, in the interests of keeping to his theme, perhaps Anderson is guilty of a bit of cherry picking. By his own statistics, belief in crazy religion and politics is strongly correlated with being white and uneducated. Religion of any kind, let alone he kooky versions, are not appealing to young college graduates. It is more accurate to speak of polarization than a hopeless slide into fantasy. Right now, the lunatics have taken over the asylum, but there are powerful counter-trends that deserve a book of their own.The dark influence of kooky religions is the rule rather than the exception around the world. Viewed from a historical perspective, there is little to chose between Christianity, Islam, and Judaism as depicted in the Old Testament. One is tempted to think that magical, counter-factual thinking is the natural state of mankind. Paying attention to the actual facts is difficult and often unpleasant. It is hard to find a place or period in history when "fake news" did not have a powerful effect on public opinion. Napoleon, for example, was famous for ensuring his own version of the facts were the ones that became common knowledge and, ultimately, history.I'm also reminded of  The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone  which documents the fact that we over-estimate what we really "know" about the world, whether we are hard-core "realists" or babbling charismatics. Anderson takes for granted that the vast majority of Americans (or any human beings) have access to some kind of objective reality. In fact, the dreadful American educational system guarantees that the average American has no idea of what a "fact" would look like. It is certainly worth asking if America's terrifying slide off the rails is due to its inability to think clearly as it is to its obsession with entertainment. Anderson ignores the fact that the Internet has also become a fire-hose of actual, factual information as well as a siren call for lazy people seeking confirmation bias. It's too early to say whether the Internet is a cancer or a cure.All this is not to say that Anderson's book is not worth reading. America does have a case to answer for its deliberate, active and often enthusiastic attack on those whose professional careers depend on adding to our store of objective truth. To cite one small example: all candidates for the Republican presidential nomination either denied evolution or allowed belief to be optional - a matter of opinion. From this denial flows denial of biology, chemistry, geology, astronomy, and physics. In fact, all of science. It is a claim that each of us is entitled to his own facts.What Anderson seems to miss is that Trump and the Republicans are a laughing stock in the rest of the world and an embarrassment to the majority of Americans. There is nothing inevitable about America's current slide into the morass of "alternate facts". The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone

This is an enlightening and wonderfully entertaining book. The writing style reminds me of Sara Vowell, and (like Vowell) Andersen takes us through history in a fascinating and lively way that eluded my high school history teachers. But, unlike Vowell, he has a unified and intriguing thesis throughout: American wackiness has been bred into our collective DNA from the beginning (well, not my DNA; I'm Canadian), so phenomena like Trump and Sarah Palin shouldn't come as such a surprise.

Not so much. Kurt Andersen nimmt einen mit auf eine irrwitzige, kurzweilige und unterhaltsame Zeitreise durch die Geschichte der Vereinigten Staaten, von der Besiedlung Virginias durch Goldsucher und Proto-Kapitalisten und Neu-Englands durch die christlich-fundamentalistischen Pilgrims, welche beide bis heute Hauptstränge des amerikanischen Charakters bilden, bis zum Aufstieg Amerikas zum Magneten für die Abenteuerlustigen, Individualisten, irren Christen, Snake-oil sellers, con-men und Waffennarren dieser Welt und der in der Zeit nach dem Krieg entstandenen Fantasy-Kultur die zunehmen den gesunden Realitätssinn überlagert. Fantasyland ist das Resultat aus über 200 Jahren Versuch, das Sein der Realität dem Sollen der Wünsche und Vorstellungen der jeweils individuellen Ideologien anzupassen. Phantastic! Donald Trump bildet dabei nur einen (vorläufigen) Höhepunkt dieser Entwicklung ab, die seit den 60er Jahren des 20. Jahrhunderts noch einmal einen ganz eigenen drive erhalten hat. Man darf gespannt, ob das Amerika der Realisten am Ende doch noch über das Amerika der Phantasten triumphiert. Derzeit sieht es leider nicht danach aus, doch die Hoffnung stirbt bekanntlich zuletzt.

I really wanted to recommend his book but I can't. While the scope, ambition and research of Anderson's book is admirable, I was ultimately left disappointed when I finished this. At times, particularly in the early chapters, the book reads more almost like an annotated bibliography where religious movements and key figures are introduced but never really flushed out in terms of a linkage to the overall intent of the work. In this regard, the book is a victim of its scope, never having enough space to flush things out before moving on to the next example. There is also a hint of unintended American exceptionalism in a lot of points of Anderson's argument that left me unconvinced. Whether it's certain religious sects, alternative movements (particularly the section on the 60s Hippies etc...) or intellectual trends, Anderson use of some of his key examples take for granted that they are somehow unique to America when that was most certainly not the case. There's also an underlying snideness in the tone of the book that appears to an unintended consequence of Anderson fighting the good fight against "post-fact" thinking and 'you do you' philosophy which I found quite off-putting.

Most important book on American culture. To understand how Trump became possible in America this book explains the factors that make a country such and only in America could it happen and did. Written the year before Trump was elected, remarkable how right on target it is, it’s still surreal that Kurt Andersen knew what he knew of this country. But, lord does it clear up, “ why are Trump supporters so stupid”, it’s called conditioning. Make believe is the core and gives you insight and compassion for a people so full of promise that it could possibly be their undoing.

Fantasyland is a fantastic read. If you've found yourself wondering how a great nation like the United States found itself with Donald Trump at the helm, read this book. Anderson clearly did a massive amount of research for this book and then put that into an immensely entertaining, insightful and truly remarkable piece of work. I came away with a much deeper understanding of U.S. history and, more importantly the American psyche. As enlightening as the book is, it also left me deeply concerned about the state of the States and the world we all inhabit.

This book carefully analyzes relevant factors in the history of the United States that suggest a convincing background for the popularity of the current President Elect. The introduction is a bit leisured, but worth the reader's patience. The final chapters summarize very succinctly the case that is made about attitudes that have shaped perceptions and preferences in the United States.

It is truly wonderful to see (and read!) sense-making in action. Andersen has done a very thorough job of tracing the origins of the present North American dysfunctional cultural landscape. This book gives the lie to many contemporary "explanations" of the malaise that is so evident in most sectors of our complex social structures and shows that simplistic left-versus-right political accounts are not sufficient. Bravo!!

This is one of the most significant books I’ve read. It puts the current political situation in the U.S. into historical perspective. It won’t likely change the minds of the wacko true believers in Trump and his cronies, but definitely encourages those who are sitting on the fence to question what is happening, to hopefully not buy into the ignorance and charlatanism that is so ubiquitous.

Both depressing and hysterical -- a tour through the history of a country that I thought I new. Suggests that the brokenness of today is a logical consequence of a kind of exceptionalism that apparently has been there since the beginning.

It gives a very unique perspective on US history and the development of a fantasy perspective. The results, particularly those that occurred after the 50's can be easily translated to Canada .

Wonderful read! A must have book to refer to in these unstable times. Clear and erudite. I hope you enjoy it.

Unbedingt lesen wer die "Amis" verstehen will. Diese Ausgabe schenkte ich meinem amerikanischen Schwiegersohn.

Die USA sind ein Fantasyland. Ein Land in dem Wünsche und Träume mehr zählen als die Realität.

Very good and easy read that is full of amazing little know facts about the creation of America that every educated person should read.