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The Devil's Pleasure Palace: The Cult of Critical Theory and the Subversion of the West Hardcover – August 11, 2015

by Michael Walsh (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars 126 customer reviews
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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 280 pages
  • Publisher: Encounter Books (August 11, 2015)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 159403768X
  • ISBN-13: 978-1594037689
  • Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 1 x 9.1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (126 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #39,030 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsThe cultural collapse of post WW2 America
By Daniel S. Palter on August 15, 2015
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
How the Frankfort School ruined everything and how it must be resisted is the basic thesis of the book. I would have preferred a more overtly political critique but this is well worth the read for the underpinnings of what is wrong with the 21st century Atlantic World. Warning: this is a polemic with a definite POV which is traditional Christian in a cultural and sociological sense. If your personal beliefs differ strongly from this you may find the book upsetting as it takes no prisoners.
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5.0 out of 5 starsWork of Genius
By sagman on October 20, 2015
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
The author’s inside jacket intro on the main page says what prospective buyers need to know about the content of the book. Read it.

Like Walsh, I grew up in the fifties, when our flag was revered and love of country was a given. That America is no more. I’ve wondered for years how we fell so fast and so far. "The Devil’s Pleasure Palace" offers a riveting, authoritative answer to the question. I believe this book will come to be regarded as the seminal work on America’s ugly transformation in the decades following Eisenhower’s presidency. It is Walsh’s masterwork.

Here we learn about the Frankfurt School Marxist philosophers (Herbert Marcuse, Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, others) who arrived on our shores after fleeing Nazi Germany, burrowed into our culture (especially academe), and began their "unremitting assault on Western values and institutions.” Which their acolytes continue to this day, aided by allies in the media and Democrats, whose affiliation Walsh has famously labeled “a criminal organization masquerading as a political party.”

Walsh is a wordsmith. His prose is crisp, clear and engaging. He can be profound and elegant in one paragraph and playful and witty in the next. You don’t dare let your mind wander when you read for fear you’ll miss some some choice expression or thought, and these populate every page. There is no filler in "Pleasure Palace."

Some reviewers found distracting Walsh’s extensive and pitch perfect tie-ins to Genesis and such monumental works as Milton’s "Paradise Lost,” Goethe’s “Faust,” and Wagner’s operas, to name a few.Read more ›
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3.0 out of 5 starsAmbitious--But Uneven and Unsatisfying
By Adam Wayne on March 13, 2016
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
I read this book because it seemed like it would be an interesting companion to James Burnham’s “Suicide of the West.” Burnham’s book explains and analyzes the ideology of American liberalism, circa 1960. “The Devil’s Pleasure Palace” in a sense continues that story; it explains how that liberalism discovered the Critical Theory leftism of the Frankfurt School, and like Gollum discovering the One Ring, did not benefit from the discovery. “The Devil’s Pleasure Palace” is, indeed, somewhat interesting. But it generally fails at explanation and analysis, instead being mostly a rambling diatribe preaching to the converted.

The core of Walsh’s book is an attack upon the Frankfurt School and its “Critical Theory.” The Frankfurt School was a group of Marxist German scholars, many from Goethe University’s Institute For Social Research in Frankfurt, who fled to the US before and after World War II, and then proceeded to repay this country’s generosity by deliberately destroying its culture. These men included Theodor Adorno, Erich Fromm, Max Horkheimer, and Herbert Marcuse. They also include, in Walsh’s telling, indirectly, men like the Communist Antonio Gramsci (famous for calling for a “long march through the institutions,” though he did not use those exact words, to combat bourgeois “cultural hegemony”) and Georg Lukács, the Hungarian Communist (not to be confused with the writer John Lukács). The key principal of the Frankfurt School was that the existing culture of the West must be destroyed and replaced, because it is irrational and oppressive, originating in and containing nothing good.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsFascinating
By Katherine A. Makinney on August 18, 2015
Format: Hardcover
Fascinating analysis of the subversion of American culture through "the Frankfurt School," a group of Marxists that moved to America and launched a department at Columbia University in Social thought that influenced Saul Alinsky, Hollywood, and ultimately our current President. Walsh weaves together the concept of story and film as well as Dante's Inferno to show how successful The Frankfurt School has been.
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5.0 out of 5 starsBRILLIANT ~ BY A PROVEN TRUSTED PRO
By LD Ahmanson on August 18, 2015
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
EXCELLENT READ.
Using his astonishing knowledge of history, Walsh puts into clear, comprehensive perspective how and why America got to where we are today...a thought-provoking warning, really...but the richness of his story-telling style makes the medicine easier to take.
There's a whole lot of learning in this book, none of it dry or dull or pompous or difficult.
It's all right there. The "subversion of the west" outlined, but not in doomsday language by any means.
The Index was especially helpful. I always appreciate that.
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5.0 out of 5 starsMichael Walsh is one of Americas best writers. He also writes under the pseudonym David ...
By Donald Cusack on September 7, 2015
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
Michael Walsh is one of Americas best writers. He also writes under the pseudonym David Kahane "Handbook for Radicals" another great book
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starstired of being flagellated by the PC crowd sending on ...

tired of being flagellated by the PC crowd sending on The Guilt Trip to Hello for dubious reasons? This is your book

Published 1 day ago by ozarkdoc
3.0 out of 5 starsCould this have been a doctoral thesis?

This book reads a little like a thesis in German literature. It will be very interesting to students of that subject, but I guess I'm a dolt. Read more

Published 9 days ago by K. Manizade
1.0 out of 5 starsToo Political

Politics and religion are not the same thing. Born again Christian and Republican are not the same thing. Read more

Published 18 days ago by Darryl Scales
1.0 out of 5 starsImpossibly boring! Without the constant reference to composer's this...

Impossibly boring! Without the constant reference to composer's this book would be about 60 pages of worthwhile reading! Ugh!

Published 19 days ago by Getintheshade
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

A good reading experience as well as informative.

Published 28 days ago by jfkMD
5.0 out of 5 starsOver the top theory that will blow your mind

I am not saying that as a bad thing either. Mr. Walsh enters the political fray against modern culture and politics in a way that is refreshing and brilliant. Read more

Published 1 month ago by psychoinhell
3.0 out of 5 starsI was expecting a more direct tutorial on the effects ...

I was expecting a more direct tutorial on the effects of political correctness or cultural Marxism than this book presented. Read more

Published 1 month ago by E. Bryan
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

Iconoclastic view of the sclerotic political class

Published 1 month ago by wonderforest
2.0 out of 5 starsImportant subject given a history lite touch...

Anticipated a scholarly history of The Frankfurt School and its influence on US culture and politics. Read more

Published 1 month ago by euclidcreek
5.0 out of 5 starsDestined to be a classic!

Feel good hit of the year. . An interesting look at pleasure. . .

Published 1 month ago by Wesley Horton

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