Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History Paperback – June 5, 2018

I've had Kurt Andersen's Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History on my Must Read pile ever since it came out in Fall of 2017. My own misapprehension led me to read first trove of Trump books all coming out around that time as being likely more topical. In a way, they were, but many of them have been subsumed by the perpetual failure to hit bottom in these times, have been rendered obsolete.Not so. Fantasyland inhabits every inch with Rembrandt precision, intuition and inference, the canvas of our nation's history as founded by Puritan outcasts, simultaneously rigid in their discipline, but addicted to the magic of Biblical literalism. From the earliest days, American exceptionalism has been in terms of our seemingly innate desire for escape; our own beliefs over established fact (if he really believes, 'trusts his gut', he's not actually lying: he believes his own Fox-fed fantasy world), from patent medicines and various sub-cults and Esalen and Jim Jones to the Internet's indiscriminate dissemination of variously-fact-contingent information, the Alt-Right, the Limbaughs and UFO fanatics and ultimately Fox News (presaging Rudy Giuliani's "Truth isn't truth"), our appetite for conspiracy, from Salem through McCarthyism to alien abduction, to speaking in tongues to Hillary's Pizza Parlor Child Pornography.In this historical, sociological context, thoroughly and thoughtfully engaged and intuitively and superbly written thesis, Trump is the apotheosis; not the bug, the feature; the inevitable.This is a great book.In the early pages, I found myself wishing I were reading Kurt assessments rather than the early chroniclers, sociologists he would cite, so pleasurable and concise is his prose. The only voice i wish we'd heard more was people like Julie Siegel, the unabashed Disney addict. Hearing her voice rather than just painting an informed portrait of an impression of various pentacostal or evangelical, et al, communities was one of the most riveting moments of the book. Would that there had been more of that. The only other interview-based quote was from Devin Nunes. Ew.There are indeed many other voices Kurt highlights, brilliant interviewer/racconteur that he is: Einstein on Religion, Hannah Arendt presciently from her 1951 The Origins of Totalitarianism:"A mixture of gullibility and cynicism have been an outstanding characteristic of mob mentality before it became an everyday phenomenon of masses. In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached a point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true...Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to be deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leader based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutably proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness."

The scope of this book is truly impressive. The author takes you from the founding years of the country through to the current decades and charts the evolution of a uniquely American society.

This author had a previous book called "Evil Geniuses". (sp?) I thought it was great. So, when he came out with the current book I bought it right away. He did not dissappoint. I've thought for a long time that America was off in its own cloud of fantasy. At times we, Americans don't seem to be able to tell truth from fiction. This is a book worth reading especially in today's climate where half the country seems to have lost it's mind. So, why not five stars? The author writes about his experiences with marijuana and other mind altering drugs. He says he doesn't regret his adolescent use of acid and marijuana. He seems to give credence to the notion that "acid trips" or marijuana highs can be useful to developing ideas and perspectives. He cites Steve Jobs as an example. Unless I am completely misunderstanding him, this is not a good message. The human brain isn't even fully developed until age 25. Adolescents are trying to find their way--through acid trips? I think not.I have an emotional side to my opinion. I tried for 17 years to alter, hide, forget, see things differently and so on with drugs (starting with beer and marijuana). Most kids don't go down the extreme road I did but who knows what damage is done. Is marijuana use the author's way to get out of "Fantasy land?" I nearly died. Today, I've been clean and sober for over 34 years but I'll never forget how inocently my drug use began. So, take that for what it is. That's why only four stars.Mark Wilder

After reading "Fantasyland," I can say I'm a Kurt Andersen believer, which he would probably laugh at since the whole book is essentially a diatribe against belief. That's not really a fair assessment, though. It's a condemnation of the uniquely American tendency toward irrational belief. Andersen manages to thread together a lot of diverse strands throughout America's history to show how Trump was voted into office. Everything in "Fantasyland" is funneling toward that point, but this isn't merely a political book. Politics plays a part, but so does sociology, religion, and history. In fact, I think of this as essential reading for anybody wanting to see the US through a different, and perhaps truer, historical prism than the perspective we get in school. His is a text like Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States." As mentioned, Andersen uses a lot of examples of magical thinking. Even before the US was founded by Puritans, who were religious zealots even by religious zealot terms, it was founded by gold seekers chasing gold that never really materialized. Throughout its history, America has been the home to Quakers, Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists, and Southern fundamentalists who speak in tongues. Andersen discusses all of them, pointing up the more bizarre aspects of their faith. He talks about P.T. Barnum and Buffalo Bill, patent medicine, snake oil, Disney. Americans, throughout the history of this country, have almost wanted to be duped. They are uniquely susceptible to conspiracy theories and X-Files. The author tries his best to make "Fantasyland" an even-handed account of gullibility. Liberals have been just as crazed, beginning perhaps with the hippies and continuing through to the whole GMO and vaccination crazes. But the bottom line is that if you support Trump and the whole direction of the GOP in recent years, you will not appreciate this book. The turn toward Trumpian craziness, Andersen argues, really ramped up around 2000 with the advent of an easily accessible internet. Suddenly everyone had equal opportunity to spread wild conspiracy theories, and there have been plenty of conspiracy theories spread by the right (the Clintons involved in murders and cover-ups, the Obama birther myth) that have never been proven. A lot of these outlandish theories have been propagated by Fox News, and when the stories were disproven Fox simply retracted them. Theories have also been spread much more widely on the right by radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh. There have been scary turns away from the objectivity of truth, the outright questioning of truth. Some of the things that once made America great, such as its individualism and the opportunity for everyone to succeed, are now contributing directly to a rejection of journalistic news, facts, and a dismissal of educated people as "elites." These are the beginning symptoms, I've read here and elsewhere, of totalitarianism. I was terrified when Trump was elected, then I calmed down and went about my daily life, but now I'm becoming terrified again. As Andersen points out, we're headed down a path that countries don't come back from. How are we going to fight our nation's problems like economic inequality, climate change, gun control, or race when a large segment of people simply insist these problems don't exist, that they are "fake news"? Andersen is an astute writer on many levels, and I appreciated his decision to insert his own thoughts and experiences into the book at times. My sole criticism of "Fantasyland"--and it's a small one--is that the author almost uses too many examples to prove his point, as though he's throwing ideas at the wall to see what sticks, and as a result his analysis of Trump's election and its aftermath is relatively limited. I wish Andersen had focused more on the trends of the last decade, but he tackled America's entire history, and almost every page of this important book was filled with eye-opening points.

The most valuable book I've read in years; incredibly insight into understanding the complexities of America's cultural evolution. Thoroughly researched, especially well presented and the most insightful book I've ever read on the subject of America's history in general and in particular, it's complex cultural evolution. Kurt Anderson is brilliant!

Good book

A really good look at how the USA has come to where it is now. Well documented and researched.

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.

Andersen posits that America's foundations lie not only in enlightenment statecraft and rugged individualism but at also in a history of magical thinking and transcendental delusion. Drawing on numerous sources and a wealth of learned literature he re-tells the history of religions in America and makes a persuasive argument that the innumerable fractious Protestant churches are a kind of original American art form and at the same time one of the foundations of modern day aversion to facts and inter-subjective fundamentals of perception and arguments. Clearly, believers in the deep truth religious feelings and/or self-help improvement gurus will not be able to take very much away from this. But hat should be no reason to dismiss Andersen's proposition as unfounded or as unfair to believers. His book gives an unconventional view on the history of the American mind and it also gives some convincing explanations for Europeans like me who are more and more baffled by what goes on in American politics. Besides Andersen is a great storyteller and writes with wry humor - the book is an entertaining read even if one does not share all the author's views.