from the inside cover:

"Combining historical analysis with contemporary observation, Susan Jacoby dissects a new American cultural phenomenon - one that is at odds with our heritage of Enlightenment reason and with modern, secular knowledge and science. With mordant wit, she surveys an anti-rationalist landscape extending from pop culture to a pseudo-intellectual universe of 'junk thought.' Disdain for logic and evidence defines a pervasive malaise fostered by the mass media, triumphant religious fundamentalism, mediocre public education, a dearth of fair-minded public intellectuals on the right and the left, and, above all, a lazy and credulous public.

Jacoby offers an unsparing indictment of the American addiction to infotainment - from television to the Web - and cites this toxic dependency as the major element distinguishing our current age of unreason from earlier outbreaks of American anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism. With reading on the decline and scientific and historical illiteracy on the rise, an increasingly ignorant public square is dominated by debased media-driven language and received opinion.

At this critical political juncture, nothing could be more important than recognizing the 'overarching crisis of memory and knowledge' described in this impassioned tough-minded book, which challenges Americans to face the painful truth about what the flight from reason has cost us as individuals and as a nation."

This is an interesting book, as far as it goes. Ms Jacoby's points are valid and she explains and supports most of them well. But her arguments sound very familiar. Al Gore covered much of the same ground in The Assault on Reason and, I think, did it better. This book doesn't feel quite cohesive; it's easy to get lost bouncing between decades and events. I still think it's worth reading, though, especially the chapters on our dismal educational system. We need to be reminded, again and again. It's a pet cause for me; I don't think there's any other issue in the entire country today that is as important as the educational crisis. How can we fix any other problems if we're not even smart enough to understand them? I would recommend The Assault on Reason before this book but, really, it's not going to hurt anyone to read both.

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