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

by Mort Rosenblum (Author)
Key Phrases: United States, New York, White House (more...)

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

Product Description

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.

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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 (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #733,019 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 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)

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?

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deliver us from evil, February 25, 2008

By	Sigurður Ingi Jónsson "SIJ" (Reykjavik, Iceland) - See all my reviews

Mort Rosenblum's book, Escaping Plato's Cave, is, alas, the kind of wisdom that those who would most benefit from it, are the very same that are least likely to seek it. This is a highly reommended present for George W. Bush and his most fervent supporters, Bill O'Reilly and those that nod in approval under his rants and finally as a teaching aid for all the budding reporters that dream of working for Rupert Murdoch. To those of you that are saying; well then, what about the terrorists; I say, Bush is not making it better.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exploding the myth, April 5, 2008

By	bogey "bogey" (tucson arizona) - See all my reviews

The author piles on historical fact after fact on the high end of the real vs unreal teeter-totter to counteract the the weight of false beliefs, concepts, and expectations that so often keep the wrong end of the teeter-totter on the ground because of our unrealistic and ignorant expectations that have resulted from looking at the shadows on the cave wall instead of turning around to view the reality exists around us and accept it for what is really going on in the world as a result of our ignorance and the capitulation of the news media to cover world affairs in order to sell entertainment.