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American Hysteria: The Untold Story of Mass Political Extremism in the United States

Andrew Burt

3.98 · Rating details · 40 ratings · 3 reviews

Savvy political and historical analysis with narrative punch, this debut of a new commentator on the American political scene looks at pivotal moments in our history when political outliers moved to the center, getting support from the general populace and those in power. From the Anti-Illuminati movement in the early Republic to the effort to ban Sharia law today, Burt sh Savvy political and historical analysis with narrative punch, this debut of a new commentator on the American political scene looks at pivotal moments in our history when political outliers moved to the center, getting support from the general populace and those in power. From the Anti-Illuminati movement in the early Republic to the effort to ban Sharia law today, Burt shows how fear of loss of influence propels these movements to the center of American life. Unlike other recent works on American politics, Burt argues that these movements are not random and inexplicable, but are driven by a particular set of circumstances in which those with social status and political power see it slipping away. Engaging in political hysteria—blacklists, scapegoating, conspiracies, cover-ups—is how they seek to get it back. While covering all American history, main chapters put readers at the center of the early nation's Anti-Illuminati and the Anti-Masons beginning in 1826, The Red Scare, 1919's Palmer Raids, 1950s McCarthyism, and the post-9/11 Anti-Sharia movement. For each political hysteria, Burt looks at the threat the movement rose to confront, its claims for who was to blame, the tools used to accomplish its ends, and how successful it was in convincing more Americans of its arguments. The ultimate aim of the book is to describe not simply what political hysteria is, but how and why it is so successful, so that past instances may be more fully understood, and future dangers avoided. Through the stories and characters who have exemplified hysteria in our past, Burt provides a compelling survey of American political extremism. And he shows that hysteria is no partisan phenomenon, nor simply a product of the lower or less-educated American classes (indeed, the demographic data suggest the contrary). American Hysteria argues that political hysteria is central to our national identity, a type of movement not relegated to the fringes, but rather routinely taking center stage. Wide swaths of the American public, its leaders and its intellectuals buy into the conspiracy theory, ready to sacrifice whatever they must—like basic constitutional rights—to keep the internal enemy at bay. As Mark Twain put it, history may not repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme. By narrating and analyzing movements of hysteria in our nation's history, this book sheds light on the politics of today and tomorrow. ...more

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Hardcover, 288 pages

Published May 2015 by Taylor Trade Publishing

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Start your review of American Hysteria: The Untold Story of Mass Political Extremism in the United States

Apr 21, 2016 Paul rated it really liked it

This book makes some critical distinctions about periods of political hysteria in U.S. history: The Illuminati, the Anti-Masons, the Red Scare, McCarthyism (not including Mortimer Snerd [ha ha]), and The U.S. after 9/11. The author points out that hysterical movements actually represent a fear of the loss of prestige by whatever group is promoting or reacting to the hysteria. Often these hysterical movements will be laughed at—or at least dismissed—by most of the population, but if they’re not t This book makes some critical distinctions about periods of political hysteria in U.S. history: The Illuminati, the Anti-Masons, the Red Scare, McCarthyism (not including Mortimer Snerd [ha ha]), and The U.S. after 9/11. The author points out that hysterical movements actually represent a fear of the loss of prestige by whatever group is promoting or reacting to the hysteria. Often these hysterical movements will be laughed at—or at least dismissed—by most of the population, but if they’re not taken with a degree of seriousness, they can lead to extremist political movements that actually do become dangerous to the nation.

The Illuminati were members of an alleged secret Freemason group that posed a dire threat to the country in the late 1700s. The principal driver for the fear was a Congregationalist pastor named Jedidiah Morse (father of Samuel F.B. Morse, and considerably more paranoid). What the Illuminati threatened was for the United States to have a closer relationship with France than with Great Britain. The French chopped people’s heads off! The French Revolution embraced all the excesses that the tidy American Revolution was not guilty or even capable of.

The incident precipitating all this hysteria was Thomas Jefferson’s desiring a closer alliance with France. The Federalists were behind Washington and Adams to a man (and to a woman, but they didn’t count then), whereas Jefferson started the Democratic-Republican party, which advocated humanism and Enlightenment ideals, as well as closer relations with France.

Morse noticed that he was losing parishioners to these Enlightenment ideas and blamed Jefferson and Thomas Paine for their friendliness to France as opposed to merrie England. These Illuminati were going to destroy the budding American republic. The president of Yale, Timothy Dwight, jumped on Morse’s bandwagon, and a divinity professor at Harvard warned the graduating class in June of 1798 that the Illuminati were bent on destroying the world. Even John Adams said he was in fear of them.

What made the movement one of hysteria was that there was not an identifiable group that could be fought, only these vague Illuminati, who held secret powers unknowable to Americans. Not a single, live Illuminatus could be found to press charges against.

The author says that what this hysteria represented was the fear of conservatives that Jefferson was too liberal and anti-authoritarian, and what the anti-Illuminati represented was a desire to maintain the traditional hierarchic structure of family, church, and state to which people should be obedient.

Well, Jefferson won the next presidential election, and the world didn’t end, and that was the beginning of the end of fears of the Illuminati.

The author continues exploding episodes of hysteria through subsequent years. In 1826, the Masons, who also represented Enlightenment ideals as well as the reality of the industrial revolution, were the bogeymen. They represented everything new, modern, and bad that threatened an agrarian society.

Later, in 1938, after FDR was making wholesale changes in the federal government that struck some citizens as “socialistic,” the alarum was raised that this was an example of the Bolshevik revolution creeping into America, and thus began The Red Scare, which, a few decades later would morph into McCarthyism.

The author concludes that the way to disarm these hysterical episodes is to assure that group that fears it’s losing prestige that, yes, they are good Americans and there is nothing to fear.

This is an excellent book, and a nice perspective on historical movements. I would recommend it to anyone interested in politics, social movements, or U.S. history.

Feb. 18, 2017
I just reread this book, and it's a perfect template for the events going on in the first month of the new president's administration. It's uncanny how the parallels run, especially to the McCarthy witch hunt for communists in the 1950s. ...more

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Jul 26, 2019 Jordan rated it really liked it

Read it for a class on Interdisciplinary Studies. The lens for that class was political hysteria in American society. I loved this book, but it can be a little depressing to see how easily fellow humans can turn against each other out of fear. Really well written. There are a few minor gaps in the logic. I look forward to reading more books in the future from this author. He was quite young when he wrote this. It's always nice to see writers progress with age. ...more

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May 16, 2015 Vince Darcangelo rated it it was amazing

Shelves: history, nonfiction, politics, psychology, reviews

http://ensuingchapters.com/2015/05/16...

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“It is neither over-reactionary nor conspiratorial to call into question or ask for transparency about Jade Helm 15 or any other government activity,” Norris wrote in an op-ed for WND.

Sadly, it’s not just over-the-hill ac ...more

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