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

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

A SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

How did we get here?

In this sweeping, eloquent history of America, Kurt Andersen demonstrates what's happening in our country today. This strange, post-truth, "fake news" moment we're all living through is not something entirely new, but rather the ultimate expression of our national character and path. America was founded by wishful dreamers, magical thinkers, and true believers, by hucksters and their suckers. Believe-what-ever-you-want fantasy is deeply embedded in our DNA. From the Salem witch trials to the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, from P. T. Barnum to Hollywood, from our fetish for guns to our obsession with extraterrestrials, our peculiar love of the fantastic has made America exceptional in a way that we've never fully acknowledged.

Written with gleeful erudition and tell-it-like-it-is ferocity, Fantasyland could not appear at a more perfect moment for understanding the politics and culture of twenty-first-century America, and how the lines between reality and illusion have become dangerously blurred.