false 33919689 1499157 1822711 0375423745 9780375423741 200 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1188838347m/1822711.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1188838347s/1822711.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1822711.The_Age_of_American_Unreason 3.74 563
Jacoby offers an unsparing indictment of the American addiction to infotainment--from television to the Web--and cites this toxic dependency as the major element distinguishing our current age of unreason from earlier outbreaks of American anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism. With reading on the decline and scientific and historical illiteracy on the rise, an increasingly ignorant public square is dominated by debased media-driven language and received opinion.

At this critical political juncture, nothing could be more important than recognizing the "overarching crisis of memory and knowledge" described in this impassioned, tough-minded book, which challenges Americans to face the painful truth about what the flights from reason has cost us as individuals and as a nation.]]> 259719 3.83 886 264 2008 2 1 false Tue Sep 30 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Sep 26 14:42:45 -0700 2008 Tue Sep 30 23:07:43 -0700 2008
Essentially the book's real premise is this: Americans are increasingly anti-rational, largely due to the fact that they are reading fewer books. Conside...more...]]>