The Age of American Unreason and over 450,000 other books are available for Amazon Kindle – Amazon’s new wireless reading device. Learn more

Buy New
 

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
 
Buy Used
Used - Very Good See details
$5.13 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
Fulfilled by Amazon

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
   
Express Checkout with PayPhrase
What's this? | Create PayPhrase
More Buying Choices
167 used & new from $1.99
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
or
Get a $0.05 Amazon.com Gift Card
 
   
The Age of American Unreason
 
 
See all product images
See all 5 customer images
Share your own customer images
Search inside this book
Start reading The Age of American Unreason on your Kindle in under a minute.

Don’t have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here.
 
  

The Age of American Unreason (Hardcover)

~ Susan Jacoby (Author)
Key Phrases: american unreason, middlebrow aspirations, junk thought, United States, New York, Soviet Union (more...)
3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (131 customer reviews)
List Price: $26.00
Price: $15.64 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
You Save: $10.36 (40%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

Want it delivered Tuesday, March 23? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details
51 new from $3.36 111 used from $1.99 5 collectible from $12.95

Formats

 Amazon Price New from Used from
Kindle Edition $9.99   -- --
Hardcover $15.64   $3.36 $1.99
Paperback $10.85   $9.38 $4.73
Audio, CD, Audiobook, MP3 Audio, Unabridged $22.79   $19.29 $18.99
Unknown Binding --   -- --
Audio, Download Offsite Link $15.74 or less with new Audible membership

Frequently Bought Together

The Age of American Unreason + Anti-Intellectualism in American Life + Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism
Total List Price: $61.00
Price For All Three: $39.44

Show availability and shipping details

  • This item: The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

  • Anti-Intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

  • Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism by Susan Jacoby

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Anti-Intellectualism in American Life

Anti-Intellectualism in American Life

by Richard Hofstadter
4.5 out of 5 stars (31)  $12.24
Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism

Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism

by Susan Jacoby
4.4 out of 5 stars (80)  $11.56
The Search for Order, 1877-1920

The Search for Order, 1877-1920

by Robert H. Wiebe
3.7 out of 5 stars (9)  $13.50
The Working Poor: Invisible in America

The Working Poor: Invisible in America

by David K. Shipler
4.3 out of 5 stars (82)  $10.88
The Paranoid Style in American Politics (Vintage)

The Paranoid Style in American Politics (Vintage)

by Richard Hofstadter
5.0 out of 5 stars (1)  $10.85
› Explore similar items

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Inspired by Richard Hofstadter's trenchant 1963 cultural analysis Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, Jacoby (Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism) has produced an engaging, updated and meticulously thought-out continuation of her academic idol's research. Dismayed by the average U.S. citizen's political and social apathy and the overall crisis of memory and knowledge involving everything about the way we learn and think, Jacoby passionately argues that the nation's current cult of unreason has deadly and destructive consequences (the war in Iraq, for one) and traces the seeds of current anti-intellectualism (and its partner in crime, antirationalism) back to post-WWII society. Unafraid of pointing fingers, she singles out mass media and the resurgence of fundamentalist religion as the primary vectors of anti-intellectualism, while also having harsh words for pseudoscientists. Through historical research, Jacoby breaks down popular beliefs that the 1950s were a cultural wasteland and the 1960s were solely a breeding ground for liberals. Though sometimes partial to inflated prose (America's endemic anti-intellectual tendencies have been grievously exacerbated by a new species of semiconscious anti-rationalism), Jacoby has assembled an erudite mix of personal anecdotes, cultural history and social commentary to decry America's retreat into junk thought. (Feb. 12)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The New Yorker

Identifying herself as a "cultural conservationist" (but by no means a cultural conservative), Jacoby laments the decline of middlebrow American culture and presents a cogent defense of intellectualism. America, she believes, faces a "crisis of memory and knowledge," in which anti-intellectualism is not only tolerated but celebrated by those in politics and the media to whom we are all "just folks." The Internet, for all its promise, is too often "a highway to the far-flung regions of junk thought." Meanwhile, twenty-five per cent of high-school biology teachers believe that human beings and dinosaurs shared the earth, and more than a third of Americans can’t name a single First Amendment right. In such an environment, Jacoby argues, the secular left and the religious right can have no fruitful dialogue on issues like the separation of church and state. She offers little hope that the situation will improve, opining that, despite increasing levels of education, "Americans seem to know less and less."
Copyright © 2008 Click here to subscribe to The New Yorker
See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 384 pages
  • Publisher: Pantheon; 1 edition (February 12, 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0375423745
  • ISBN-13: 978-0375423741
  • Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.6 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (131 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #32,682 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

    #8 in  Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Communication > Media And Society
    #40 in  Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Media Studies

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

More About the Author

Susan Jacoby
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

› Visit Amazon's Susan Jacoby Page
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Surprise Me!
Search Inside This Book:
Inside This Book (learn more)
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
american unreason, middlebrow aspirations, junk thought, middlebrow culture, boy crisis
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
United States, New York, Soviet Union, Second World War, The Culture of Distraction, Young Nation, Dumbness Downward, Just Us Folks, Public Life, Supreme Court, Fellow Travelers, The New Old-Time Religion, Morning of America's Culture Wars, New England, The Movement, Old Left, White House, First World War, New Deal, Southern Baptists, New Left, Other Sixties, Van Doren, Vietnam War, Partisan Review
Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Surprise Me!
Search Inside This Book:

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

The Age of American Unreason
90% buy the item featured on this page:
The Age of American Unreason 3.6 out of 5 stars (131)
$15.64
Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism
4% buy
Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism 4.4 out of 5 stars (80)
$11.56
Anti-Intellectualism in American Life
3% buy
Anti-Intellectualism in American Life 4.5 out of 5 stars (31)
$12.24
Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free
2% buy
Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free 3.4 out of 5 stars (109)
$17.16
Explore similar items

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
 
(43)
(38)
(19)
(17)
(17)
(14)
(12)
(8)
(7)
(5)
Agree with these tags?
See all 60 tags...

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags
 

Customer Reviews

131 Reviews
5 star:
 (47)
4 star:
 (32)
3 star:
 (23)
2 star:
 (16)
1 star:
 (13)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.6 out of 5 stars (131 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
160 of 173 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A painful, unflattering look in the mirror, February 23, 2008
Jacoby is at her best when she reasons close to the facts, documents her claims, and builds logical sequences from those facts. She is at her worst when she engages in speculative, broad brush generalizations that seem to be presonalized impressions.

Her book has the texture of being written from two mindsets, one more objective and untimately far more informative, and the other, more subjective and tendentious without the assurance that those impressions are carefully grounded in evidence.

Because of this dual natured, dual flavored style some reviewers have accurately sensed the weak side of Jacoby's thought processes and taken umbrage. Which isn't entirely unfair, only incomplete and one sided criticism.

Where Jacoby shines, and when she shines she shines brightly, is the spot on deconstruction of the "belief path" that America has taken over the last three decades from the Reagan Revolution, some would say the seeds were planted in the Nixon administration (this with Nixon's calculation that the religion card could be played for maximum political advantage) until the NeoConservative debacle of the present.

Jacoby makes a strong case that Americans are not inherently stupid, anti-rational, or ahistorical clamoring rubes (although a superficial reading of her book could leave one with that emotive sense of her thrust), rather that the American media, American educational structure, and the introduction of disruptive technologies have colluded to produce an atmosphere so sterile and lacking of nutrition that Americans are growing up as stunted, incomplete, intellectually damaged citizens dangerously unprepared for the global tasks we will soon face.

This is a most terrible actuality to see as it truly is. The average, average mind you means that a good percentage are above this number, watch seven hours of television in a 24 hour period, what's worse is that the average American now watches indiscriminately, using television as an escapist drug, not as a source of information. Her evidence (which I badly wish she had closely documented and footnoted) is that today the viewer will watch 7 hours of television regardless of what is being broadcast. In other words, the viewer doens't care what is on, only that there is something marginally viewable. One must wonder, when does vegatation become outright addiction of the same power as opiate addictions ?

This stuporous, bovine, cud chewing, glazed over, hypnotic fog appears to be matched with a near contempt for science, rigorous logic, reasoned philosophy, or even the conversational reference to any of the above. When a high percentage of science teachers are unaware that large reptiles ceased to inhabit the Earth and mammals began their ascent at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, thus humans and dinosaurs could not possibly have lived at the same time, if you can imagine, and assuming her statistic is accurate, that 25% of high school biology teachers actually believe in Human-Dinosaur cohabitation.... the only thing one can conclude is that our educational system is so broken it would take another massive meteor impact to change anything, as the phase goes, "Houston, we have a problem"...

Yes, we do... a serious dysfunction that goes all the way to the core of our society...

Regardless of its imperfections, Jacoby has written an essential book for taking stock of this social-political-educational moment in American history, and we would be fools not to begin asking hard questions as to who and what we have allowed ourselves to become as a people.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


 
135 of 150 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Taking the temperature of contemporary American culture, February 18, 2008
By A.W.G. (New York, New York) - See all my reviews
Susan Jacoby's beautifully written and convincingly argued book should be sine qua non reading for ALL parents, as well anyone who has anything to do with education. She clears away any doubts one might entertain about the benefits of even the most "educational" videos for young children, backing up her points with evidence from reliable sources. According to a recent study carried out by the University of Washington and Seattle Children's Hospital, overexposure to videos like "Brainy Baby" may actually be impeding language development in babies.
The book's acute analysis of political "communication" and media punditry should also be required reading for anyone who aspires to make an informed and wise choice in the crucial political battle currently being fought for the future of our nation. Her observations are all the more interesting in light of the current attack on "eloquence" in political speech--with its specious implication that one cannot be eloquent and effective simultaneously.
There are purely intellectual pleasures as well to be had from Jacoby's wonderfully ambitious reach into American history. I particularly enjoyed her investigation of the idea that, from the very beginning, our democratic culture rested on a contradiction: [Jacoby, 37] "The health of democracy, as so many of the founders had proclaimed, depended on an educated citizenry, but many Americans also believed that too much learning might set one citizen above another and violate the very democratic ideals that education was supposed to foster."
I particularly recommend the downloadable vodcast of Jacoby's interview with Bill Moyers [Feb. 15th] http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/index-flash.html . Given the very substantial interest the book has already sparked, there may be some hope for us yet.






Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


 
113 of 129 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars I thought the idea was to apply reason, July 17, 2008
By Robert F. DeVellis (Chapel Hill, NC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This is a book I should have liked. I picked it up enthusiastically when I read the jacket flaps, as it seemed to make an argument that I often find myself making -- more and more people decide matters on the basis of their preconceived biases with little regard for the facts. People don't like being troubled by facts when guesses, hunches, gossip, and drivel are so much easier and more amusing to digest.

As a college professor, I guess I qualify as an intellectual, although that word seems to have multiple surplus meanings, only some of which I consider an accurate reflection of who I am. But without question, I'm an advocate of evidence as a basis of reaching conclusions. I teach research methods to doctoral level students and write papers for scientific journals. I serve on editorial boards and have been a peer reviewer for public and private (nonprofit) research agencies. I take matters of evidence seriously.

So, why did I end up being disappointed in a book that seemingly advocates for the values I hold in such high esteem? Before answering that directly, let me say that there were parts of this book I did find informative and engaging. For example the discussion of how reason guided many of America's founders' view of the world, was handled skillfully (although I might not catch minor glitches because this isn't an area in which I have anything beyond a general level of knowledge). What disappointed me, however, was an apparent disregard for the role of evidence as the basis for other conclusions the author seems more than willing to treat as factual.

This may be best illustrated by a quote from p. 250, which closes a section discussing the impact of video media on young children: "Is more research required to tell us what is already known from medical studies of drugs and from millennia of educational effort -- that the impact of any substance or exposure, good or bad, is magnified by the length of exposure and that the effect is strongest on immature and therefore more malleable organisms?" So, here we have a book decrying unreason arguing that we shouldn't do research into a topic because received knowledge has taught us all we need to know about the matter. I consider the nature of inquiry to be ongoing, with further refinements in our understanding of various phenomena arising from continued scrutiny and questioning of prevailing beliefs. Jacoby's stance reflected in the quote is as fundamentally anti-intellectual as some of the ideas the author criticizes. First of all, video (of which I'm no particular fan, especially for the very young) is not a drug. Nor is medical research the most relevant, as we are considering behavioral and educational outcomes rather than health status per se in the discussion preceding the quoted statement. Millennia of educational effort, to use her term, have not helped us to perfect the process of education. Why should it be treated as having a higher yield in this particular instance? Her statement is an argument, not evidence. Also, it is factually incorrect to state that the impact of any substance or exposure is amplified by duration (although that will sometimes be the case). (Someone with a true respect for reason and the role of evidence as a basis for conclusions would shy away from the word "any" in a context such as this.) Furthermore, there are well documented (as well as intuitively obvious) counterexamples involving processes of habituation and adaptation, in which sensitivity to a stimulus is dialed down, not up, as a result of prolonged exposure. Our attention is channeled away from stimuli that are prolonged and relatively invariant. One summer, I worked next to an amusement park shooting gallery. I cringed and blinked with every shot fired for the first day or so. Then, I blinked but didn't cringe. Then I didn't blink. I'd habituated to the sound of a rifle being fired. The specifics aren't as important as the tone of the quoted statement. Nor is this particular dismissal of fact as a basis for conclusions the only instance in the book. (Nor, in fairness, is every conclusion unsupported.) But how can a claim such as this lodge itself in a treatise that targets unreason and denounces claims that lack a factual basis?

My sense was (and this is opinion on my part) that Jacoby is less comfortable with notions of evidence than with reason. Stated differently, her intellectual approach strikes me as more attuned to the humanities than the sciences or mathematics. Both reason and evidence are imperfect tools, of course. But there are differences. When the two clash, a scientist is inclined to be swayed by evidence, at least until better evidence comes along. In scholarly fields that have relied more heavily on reason than empirical evidence, this may be less true and I say that not as a criticism but merely an observation. When there is no definitive evidence, reason is likely to be an attractive and powerful alternative. While Jacoby praises the sciences as a means to establishing facts, she seems not to take a scientific approach to truth-seeking in some cases (like the one discussed above). Jacoby seems most comfortable in the intellectual milieu of the humanities, to oversimplify, perhaps.

Reason is good and we don't see enough of it. There, she and I would agree. But I hold evidence -- despite its sometimes transient nature -- as a higher approximation to truth. Of course, the two together are better than either alone. But Jacoby's casual attitude toward evidence really undermined her arguments for me. Had she taken the same stance and presented her ideas as opinion, with the benefit of supporting evidence where appropriate, I would have found little with which to quibble. But, in the context of asserting the intellectual laxity of Americans, her assertions, when not supported -- and occasionally contradicted -- by facts, really put me off.

To end on a positive note, one implicit goal of this book is to stimulate thought and discussion. It has succeeded. I'd rather read a book with which I disagree in part than one that fails to stimulate my thinking at all. This book did make me think, even if those thoughts were critical at times.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Being uninformed is a way of life. Or maybe it isn't
Thank you, Susan Jacoby, for calling a spade a spade. This book is spot on. Since when did it become apropos to be anti-intellectual? Read more
Published 3 days ago by Patti Peeples Gustafson

3.0 out of 5 stars Incomplete but Entertaining
While I enjoyed this book a lot, I think the thinking is somewhat inconsistent, since it jumps around from historical facts to observations and opinion, and personal... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Merle Eugene Betz Jr.

5.0 out of 5 stars Scholarly rather than polemic
Jacoby's book is a cogent and serious look at a subject that could all too easily have been trivialised. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Elliott Bignell

4.0 out of 5 stars Even the Brightest and Keenest Mind Finds it Hard to Stick to Evidence Based Argument
This long lament over the decline of intellectual vigor in America had a number of interesting effects on me. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Richard R. Powell

5.0 out of 5 stars WAKE-UP CALL
Susan Jacoby's book THE AGE OF AMERICAN UNREASON may anger many readers who identify most closely with the complaints Jacoby observes, but whether the reader agrees with her... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Grady Harp

1.0 out of 5 stars great observation, lacks critical thought and thoroughly self obsessed
I bought this book in thorough agreement that my fellow Americans and I need to increase the value we place on knowledge and objectivity. Read more
Published 4 months ago by M. Waymire

4.0 out of 5 stars 3.5 Stars - Read it Anyway or Listen on CD
Not on par with Richard Hofstadter's classic Anti-Intellectualism in American Life. Leftward biased and long-winded ... but ... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Thomas J. Kapostasy

5.0 out of 5 stars Sensational
This book has the power of opening the reader's eyes to what America is really like, uneducated and ignorant to the world around us. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Jeremiah J. Dennis

5.0 out of 5 stars An intelligent discussion of unintelligence in America
Back in the days when I tried to learn some foreign languages one of the things I quickly learned was that it was a bad idea to study two languages that were closely related at... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Robert Moore

4.0 out of 5 stars Unfortunately, True
In an age of "American Unreason", Jacoby successfully accomplishes the disheartening task of calling Americans out on their lack of intellectualism. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Paul Yudd

Only search this product's reviews


Customer Discussions

This product's forum
› See all discussions...  
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
   

So You'd Like to...

Create a guide

Look for Similar Items by Category

Look for Similar Items by Subject

Search Books by subject:


















i.e., each book must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...
 

Feedback

If you need help or have a question for Customer Service, contact us.
 Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
Is there any other feedback you would like to provide?

Your comments can help make our site better for everyone.


Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.