Escaping Plato's Cave: How America's Blindness to the Rest of the World Threatens Our Survival [Hardcover]

Mort Rosenblum (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2, 2007

Cave Blindness

Like Plato's cave-dwellers who only saw inaccurate reflections of reality on the wall, America has been blinded to dangerous realities inside and outside our borders, argues award-winning journalist Mort Rosenblum. Our ignorance is not just deplorable, it is literally killing us--and others. 

Rosenblum--who has reported from more than one hundred countries, many of which he has outlived--explains how we all can and must learn more about what's really happening in the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America, in matters of war, peace, business, the environment, and education. 

This cri de coeur by one of our planet's most eloquent journalists is a must-read for anyone concerned about what they don't see in the newspaper or on TV. It offers both insight and practical ways for Americans to get out of the cave and see what's really going on around us.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Mort Rosenblum has spent his entire working life in the wider world, and "Escaping Plato's Cave" is the fruit of that vast fieldwork--passionate, timely, and original, it is a book every American should read."

--Paul Theroux

From the Back Cover

Advance Praise for Escaping Plato's Cave

"[Mort Rosenblum's] most intense, detailed, and certainly most passionate book. I read it with pleasure and felt enlightened. . . . It is bitterly funny as well as powerful."
--Paul Theroux, author of Dark Star Safari

"A great foreign correspondent draws on forty years of travels and experiences to paint a vivid picture of how America is falling short of its highest values and crippling its global leadership."
--James F. Hoge, Jr., editor, Foreign Affairs

"This has to be the greatest ticket a boy yearning to see the world could ever dream of: forty years as a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press, your feet touching the soil of a hundred countries, the stomach-tingling thrill of being on deadline with you every single moment of those four decades. What a journey. What a reporter. What a life."
--Bob Greene, author of And You Know You Should Be Glad

"This chilling, anguished account of how badly we are served by the journalism establishment, which ignores the flaws of our leaders and indulges the national optimism in the face of reality, could perhaps only be written by an insider with Rosenblum's experience, and the perspective of someone who understands other societies. I hope his news is heard."
--Diane Johnson, author of Le Divorce

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (October 2, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312364407
• ISBN-13: 978-0312364403
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,322,166 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mort Rosenblum is a Paris-based reporter, author, and journalism professor at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Since 1965, he has covered stories on seven continents, from the Vietnam War to tango dancing by the Seine. He was editor of the International Herald Tribune, special correspondent for The Associated Press, and founding editor of Dispatches quarterly. His 13 books include Coups and Earthquakes and Who Stole the News? He also grows olives in Provence.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent!, November 21, 2007

By 

Eugene Finley (Bolinas, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Escaping Plato's Cave: How America's Blindness to the Rest of the World Threatens Our Survival (Hardcover)

I found Escaping Plato's Cave to be an eye opening view of the corporate journalism in American now and a "must read book". It is well written and packed with a lifetime of tales of traveling to wars and disasters as a reporter. Like a good reporter, he speaks in a well modulated and clear voice throughout despite the horrible catastrophe he is describing. He is reporting a vast attack on journalism that is not being reported in the press. This is not some fringe lunatic, but a major mainstream professional writer and reporter who has been our trusted eyes and ears fro a long time.

This is a book by an insider about how and why the news is no longer accurate reports from the source at the scene. When organizations like the AP cut down the number of reporters on location, soon the news from many places is only available from official government sources.

How can you have news without reporters? As this books shows it maybe exactly what the major news organizations are doing.

It is a first hand account of the corporate takeover that is happening in many critical areas of American life. Like all news, it is meaningless unless you understand it and believe it to be true. The many ways the truth can be spun should not be the hallmark of good journalism.

Mort Rosenblum and many other experienced journalists have been gotten rid of as part of a downsizing trend. It is a trend that suits the new owners since it cuts costs and all the difficulties with reporters in the field whose stories don't agree with the press releases from Washington. With no reporters in the field who can disagree with the word from Washington?

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why am I reading this book?, July 15, 2008

By 

E. Crichton "Betty Jean" (Silver Spring, MD) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Escaping Plato's Cave: How America's Blindness to the Rest of the World Threatens Our Survival (Hardcover)

What led me to buy this book? I don't know. I have always read newspapers and news magazines for serious news, light fiction for pleasure. and bought books that I wanted for reference materials. 'Escaping Plato's Cave' has riveted me from the first few pages. Early on, Rosenblum gives a quote that is a major theme of the book. The answer to the question of what has been going wrong with our country for the past fifty years, he quotes, is that we have been treating the EFFECTS, not the CAUSES. We are always behind.

Think about that. When the bombers flew the planes into the World Trade Center, what was our reaction? "Go get 'em." Did anyone ask, "Why were these people so angry that they would do such a thing?"

How can we win a "War on Terrorism" when our actions make more and more people furious with us? The ranks of terrorists increase when we kill innocent civilians, hold (and torture) prisoners for years before finding out that many were not who we thought they were, insist on imposing our form of government on cultures that do not admire or want it, arrogantly refuse to cooperated with the rest of the world in curbing pollution and conserving energy.

I thought that we were redeeming ourselves through our disaster aid. Wrong. Rosenblum tells us what has really been happening. He was there.

I'm only part way through the book. Join me in seeing reality.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A veteran's perceptive take on the world, December 22, 2007

By 

Pranay Gupte "www.pranaygupte.com" (Brooklyn, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Escaping Plato's Cave: How America's Blindness to the Rest of the World Threatens Our Survival (Hardcover)

Mort Rosenblum's writings are always deeply perceptive, keenly observed and smartly composed. Those of us belonging to a certain journalistic generation know how wonderful Mort's dispatches were during his long tenure at The Associated Press. His books are something to look forward to, and "Plato's cave" is a delight. This kind of writing can only come from long experience and from personal knowledge of the world's complexities.