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Jun 30, 2010

Ellen rated it:

President Obama - "a product of this elitist system" - by Chris I'm-So-Bitter-I-Could-Die Hedges

Just finished Chris Hedges' book, and am irked on so many levels, I'd be hard put to count the ways… Hedges' slim book, rather ponderously entitled, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle places it firmly in the ample literature of visual culture and spectacle. Yet, despite the fact that a) Hedges cites numerous theorists throughout the b More...

34 comments like (29 people liked it)

Nov 29, 2011

Bob rated it:

AN ELOQUENT SCREED

Chris Hedges, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for his war reporting for the New York Times, has written an eloquent screed against the negative effects of our entertainment-driven culture. As a complaint, it's spot-on. As a critique, it falls short: Hedges blames easy targets and fails to offer any sympathetic understanding of his victims (or perpetrators), or a constructive response to the crisis.

After a general opening essay, Hedges examines various More...

0 comments like (9 people liked it)

Jan 23, 2012

April rated it:

Chris Hedges writes a thought provoking masterpiece on America the (not so) great. Hedges links several hallmarks of our culture (reality TV, privacy, the war on terror, big business) with the decline of humanity. Hedges paints a picture that shows how the United States sold her soul to big business- and how "they" are now dominating everything, focused on producing a society of consumers who will not question authority, but simply buy, buy, buy until there is nothing left. Hedges prov More...

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Jan 09, 2012

Jonny-Loves-ta-Read rated it:

Empire of Illusion is all about the deliberate connections between cultural phenomena and political agenda in America. Chris Hedges guides the reader through what he believes to be are three different, but closely related illusions: the illusion of literacy, the illusion of love, and the illusion of wisdom.

This book was entertaining and challenging from the beginning. References to Plato, Aristotle, Adam Smith, George Orwell and FDR are explained to the extent that these political a More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 15, 2011

Sam rated it:

Frustrating first two chapters with to me distasteful examples of illusion of literacy and illusion of love (pro wrestling and porn industry). The last three chapters were very powerful (Illusion of Wisdom, Happiness and America). From page 103 (Illusion of Wisdom) "The bankruptcy of our economic and political systems can be traced directly to the assault against the humanities. The neglect of the humanities has allowed elites to organize education and society around predetermined answer More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 06, 2011

Jennifer rated it:

How to review this book? The idea is certainly true -- or at least deeply resonant with me at the moment. We as a culture have become addicted to illusion and spectacle. Prominent examples from the book include professional wrestling, porn, and our obsession with celebrities. We are surrounded by distraction -- TVs everywhere blaring a 24-hour fluff news cycle and somehow no programs of substance, twitters and Facebook statuses on constant rolling feeds, all in 140 characters or less, all of us More...

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Nov 22, 2011

Caitlin rated it:

I was totally into this book for the first four sections. The Illusion of Literacy, discussing celebrity culture, the Illusion of Love, concerning pornography, the Illusion of Wisdom, about our education system, and the Illusion of Happiness, about positive psychology, are all intriguing. Hedges rubs salt in the wound of what is wrong with America: it's all things that you kind of know, that make you uncomfortable - he exposes and explores them. And these things are a wound; each day they chip a More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 01, 2011

Isaac rated it:

If you happen to be one of the people in here who thinks Mr. Hedges is wrong, I implore you to put down the books, turn off the computer, and go outside and talk to people. Not your college buddies or learned library-frequenting friends—regular people. Go hang out at a McDonald's and ask these people when the last time they read a book was. Ask them about how happy they are and why. Ask them how they feel about their country (ask them to name 10 state capitols or their state representatives, jus More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Aug 14, 2011

Ross rated it:

If this book was only the last chapter, titled "The Illusion of America," I would have given it 3 and perhaps even 4 stars. In this chapter, Hedges writes with far more purpose and conviction and gives a scathing (and ominous) assessment of our present state of affairs. The first, third, and fourth chapters (The Illusion of literacy, the illusion of wisdom, and the illusion of happiness respectively) are terrible. In "The illusion of literacy," he uses "we" and " More...

1 comment like

Jul 04, 2011

Marko rated it:

I happened to be reading this at the same time as Paul Goodman's Growing Up Absurd, published in 1956, and though the focus of the two books are very different, the problems they address are at root the same. The intervening fifty years has only shown that America has spiraled farther away from reality and its consequences. In Hedges's critique, published in 2009, the situation seems much worse for having becoming normal, and unchallenged even by the so-called liberal educated class. The once fi More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 17, 2011

Joel rated it:

Everybody should read at least the last chapter of this book ("The Illusion of America") which opens "I used to live in a country called America. . . .but only the shell remains." Hedges' pessimistic rant about the coming collapse of our society is unrelentingly dire, but his summation of our current situation seems accurate and (two years after it was written) prescient. Whether or not we are on the verge of complete and utter national collapse, as Hedges claims, our colle More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Mar 22, 2011

Matt rated it:

I've never liked Chris Hedges' writing, and this book hasn't changed my mind. He undermines the genuinely good points that he makes with his rambling, sanctimonious, and conclusory passages. I'm fairly certain that he thinks he's Jesus, and regularly presents a half of one side of the story before proceeding to draw wild conclusions from it.

He contradicts himself all of the time. For example, he laments the fact that the Ivy Leagues only reward "analytic thinkers" and le More...

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Jan 15, 2011

Lauren rated it:

The world has been ending since it began--over and over and over again. Hedges needs to read more history if he thinks that this is the first time that people have claimed that the "no nothings" have taken over and civilized thought and life is coming to an end.

Where to begin--first of all, the book is a mishmosh of topics put together simply because the writer thinks they are "bad"--he mostly makes no attempt to show that they are connected in any other way. More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 31, 2010

Leah rated it:

There are few books I've read that are as powerful, depressing, and unnerving as Chris Hedges' Empire of Illusion. Within these pages are a grim and blistering condemnation of how far America has fallen down the rabbit hole into a superficial dreamland of breast implants and positive coercion- errr, psychology. It leaves little doubt in my mind that an urgent paradigm shift is needed now, more than ever.
Sadly though, this message will most likely end up just preaching to the choir, and tha More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Dec 21, 2010

Mauberley rated it:

Good but not great observations on the decline of America. The chapters on wrestling, pornography, and positive psychology were interesting but around three quarters of the way through them, I found myself skimming rather than reading. For me the best chapters were 'The Illusion of Wisdom' and 'The Illusion of America'. If you saw 'Capitalism: A Love Story', you may remember Michael Moore's opening lament for the passing of an America where Dad, working hard on the line at an automaker, was able More...

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Dec 04, 2010

Meika rated it:

I almost didn't make it past the first chapter with this book. He didn't do his research on the reality of professional wrestling (WWE etc), and committed the cardinal sin of saying it is all stagecraft and choreography. It isn't. Lucky for him, his point about the spectacle-ness of it still holds. That said, I didn't really trust him for the rest of the book because one overgeneralization is one too many when you put all this stuff in writing and call bullshit on the US of A.

I do More...

3 comments like

Nov 26, 2010

Zombiestopperuno added it

The central thesis of this book is that we have as a society become so detached from reality that we’ve lost any ability to influence our political or economic destiny. The author asserts that this detachment is no accident. It’s a product of corporate efforts to alter the culture in such a way as to enhance their short-term interests. Various tactics are employed including: mis-directing the anger of the economically alienated; distracting the public with celebrity obsession; manipulating the e More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 25, 2010

Kurt rated it:

One of my favorite quotes comes from one of my favorite writers, Edward Abbey, who said, "Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion." Over the years as I have witnessed and learned about the decline of our civilization and our society I have noticed that most people prefer the comfortable delusions. The delusions come in the form of mindless entertainment, increasingly opinionated and sensationalistic "news", eagerness to blame complex problems on simplistic bogeymen More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 29, 2010

Mike rated it:

This is a rather depressing book about the current state of affairs in the United States, one that does not paint a pretty picture for the future of the country. I read his previous books (War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning and American Fascists) and found them interesting. This book continues in the vein of his previous works, but is a little more negative in its outlook. The most significant flaw of the book is the writer's tone-deaf use of Wittgenstein's statement, "Whereof one cannot More...

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Oct 11, 2010

Dan rated it:

If you look at the title of this book and read the jacket synopsis and think, "Yeah, this sounds like something I will agree with," then put the book down and don't waste your time. For a book so clearly aimed at the literate, it offers nothing new.
The recounting of professional wrestling seems less like an exposé and more like classist gossip.
His opinions of pornography are fatalistic; ALL porn is exploitative and abusive; ALL consumers of porn are bound to eventually see More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Aug 25, 2010

Leonard rated it:

If there's one non-fiction book I've read this year that I would select as the best written and most important one, it would probably be this one (I say "probably" because the year isn't over and I'm still reading). Empire of Illusion is scary good. The news that Hedges has for us is not good news. Much of what was solid, meaningful, and substantial in our lives, according to Hedges, has become illusion, including love, happiness, and yes, even the United States. We are lving in a dec More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 17, 2010

Lauren rated it:

To fully appreciate this book, you have to get to the last few pages when Mr. Hedges finally lays out his full thesis and pulls together the various strings he dangled earlier in the book. I'll be honest, I didn't love this book for the simple reason that I spent the first two-thirds of it thinking one of the following:

(1) This is like being at a dinner party where the person you've just met says something along the lines of "oh, I just got out a serious relationship that had a me More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 19, 2010

Bob rated it:

Recently finished the latest book by Chris Hedges and I agree with the man's words through and through. Some may feel he left off on a weak note, when really wishing us greater love for one another and the ability to make the necessary sacrifices to pull through is the most realistic (and heart-felt) solution anyone can offer, especially at this point. It may sound like a cop-out to those who don't grasp love's significance. Love is the common denominator, and I don't care how corny that may r More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 17, 2010

Paul is currently reading it

I really do not know if I will ever finish this book. I probably shall. It's short enough. But it is rather pointless in the obviousness of its observations. Our fascination with the spectacle of Professional Wrestling shows that we really like to see pathetic fucks beat eachother up, much like the ancients Romans liked to watch gladiators savage one another. Wow! That means we're like ancient Rome! Gee, I never thought of that! What an extraordinarily sharp historical analogy, one which More...

1 comment like

Jan 10, 2010

Donna rated it:

It's rare that I give one star to a book I actually finish, but in the end that is what this book deserves.

The author's thesis is that in the current culture we mistake illusions (of love, of happiness, of wisdom) for reality to the point at which we are now facing the end of the American democracy and Western Civilization as we know it. Page after page, chapter after chapter Hedges decries all of the ills in society; and because he believes the education system is broken, education More...

5 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 29, 2009

A.J. added it

Let us cut to the chase: corporation = bad, military = bad, pornography = bad, television = bad, pictures = dumb, reading = smart, America = a mess, love = good; this is Empire of Illusion distilled.

This is a book I'd like to love, but I can't, and the reason is that the book really isn't much more complex or nuanced or more elegantly argued than the summary above.

The ideas are broadly attractive. Literacy is declining. Television does function as a theatre of cruelty. More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Sep 11, 2009

Marissa rated it:

Chris Hedges argues that we now live in two societies: One, the minority, functions in a print-based, literate world, that can cope with complexity and can separate illusion from truth. The other listens to and watches a lot of crap.

Hedges starts with an overview of WWE plotlines and analysis of the increasingly misogynistic porn market (torn anuses and worse). Those chapters were eye-openers for me.

I must admit that I was just as ignorant of some aspects from the final More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Jul 29, 2009

Marianne rated it:

"Chris Hedges charts the dramatic and disturbing rise of a post-literate society that craves fantasy, ecstasy and illusion." If you don't want a blow-by-blow description of the spectacle of professional wrestling (ch. 1) and the porn industry (ch. 2), skip the first two chapters. I understand that they are there to demonstrate how this country is living on illusion rather than reality, but it is very graphic and disturbing. The rest of the book is worth reading and makes some good, More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 30, 2012

Sam rated it:

Chapter 1 Illusion of Literacy, describes the scripts of “Reality” shows, at somewhat a boring length, but probably necessary to identify trends, the 2nd Chapter Illusion of Love: is on Pornography, somewhat lurid descriptions to wade through, (don’t stop here) but again the trend is outlined from the 60’s to now, scary as it’s centre is the US and worse still, that our younger generation is fully into viewing it. Its not what I thought porn was about !!

*** The 3rd chapter Illusion o More...

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Aug 29, 2011

Connie rated it:

Hedges is brilliant. He succinctly summarizes all the disorganized thoughts I have had over the past 10 yrs or more. Analyzing the course of life in America, he clarifies what has been bouncing in my brain for some time. We are going downhill, fast, and there are a few factors that are directly responsible for that slide.

Entertainment has taken the place of most that was of value in our lives, and he posits that most people wish ONLY to be entertained, and even if given the opportunity More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

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