[I seem to have forgotten to post my review for this in a timely manner... Sorry!]

An excellent examination of the power of (strange) thinking in America and its lasting impact on the character of the nation. Andersen takes a sweeping look at American history, teasing out the peculiar factions that have arisen over the centuries of European presence in the Americas. Even though it was published three years ago, it has remained highly relevant and timely - as we see an increasing erosion of trust in facts, science and *what we're seeing with our own eyes*, it remains a must read.

Very highly recommended, I'm certainly looking forward to reading Andersen's follow-up, which will be published later this year.

The writer explains how we got to believe in different fantasies even those concerning our country's history starting with the Puritans and going up to today with the election of Donald Trump as president. He explains how we got were we are today in believing what we believe is true whether it is really true or not. He does a good job in explaining the history of American culture and how we became to believe anything no matter if they are true or not. This is a good book that explains how we got here as a country where we can believe anything as long as it lines up to our values.

Another interesting book on American History and how both sides have twisted history. I personally own books specifically history and written by founding fathers that show how both sides conservative and liberals have twisted history for their own agendas. This book writes about that very well.

Loved it! I remember the Agrarian Myth- it's been a part of American Culture for forever! This book was such a fun and entertaining read, I almost wish it was longer. The author has obviously done his homework as the book is well researched.. It's well written so easy to read, too. I love American history and Kurt Andersen's book makes it so enjoyable. Make a great gift for an armchair historian.

This book gives us a fascinating history of how we have always been gullible, giving into hysteria and conspiracy theories and that the current discourse of the fringe groups is nothing new. The writing is funny and sarcastic and it gave me (as a non American) an interesting look at the other side of self-proclaimed American exceptionalism.

An intriguing, if at times exhausting, look at America’s 500-year history of “fake news,” conspiracy theories and other marginal movements. The author painstakingly describes the rise and fall of such movements, but of particular interest is his objective description of what’s going on in our horrendous present times. It’s not difficult to read a muted sense of bewilderment at the description of our national life under Donald Trump. Well-done!

A bit of a hodge podge but interesting perspective. Worth the read.

If you want a screed about how much America sucks and how the roots of that stem from the religious convictions white Europeans brought over from the outset, this is your book. Andersen concludes that the collapse in shared reality comes from our childishness, which is tied to our religiosity. Fan fiction comes in for condemnation, as does cosplay, and conspiracy theories and belief in UFOs and pretty much everything else that isn’t at least cold-eyed agnosticism. I recognize that my ox is being gored so perhaps I’m not in the best position to judge, but it seemed to me that Andersen confused two very different things: relativism, which is to say that not everything that is true for me is true for you, and evangelicism, which is to say that everything I feel is true is true and if you disagree you are wrong and must be punished. By condemning both together, Andersen makes it hard for people who believe in pluralism to find a place to stand.

Excellently written history of how the US was built on and exudes nonsense. Descriptive rather than prescriptive. I think the same could be said for a lot of countries, but this may be a case of actual American exceptionalism.

Anderson in his liudidmand pleasure to read,style makes,clear that it is no accident that are political,lives are,where and what they are. By tracing political,discourse through American history, we learn that the bad place we qreat was almost inevitable. The book the functions as a cautionary tale to help us avoid even further falling into the abyss.

What do Americanism and charlatans have in common? This book tries to piece together the unique American predilection for believing the unbelievable, the conspiracy, the fantastical and the terrifying as reality. The author takes us from our very beginning as the outposts of colonial, predatory powers, to national infancy, nascent adolescence, and what passes for understanding and discourse in today's USA. He goes into great detail about national hysterias from the Salem witch trials, to the horrible child abuse cases, to alien abductions, to the modern nonsense about vaccines causing autism.. It is an interesting look at ourselves, where our nation has been, where were are, how we got here, and tries to answer the question: why are Americans so gullible, foolish, and frightened. The author ends with a very American forward looking belief that we can fix this mess we have gotten ourselves into, hopefully.

The author has written a very unique view of American history.

Everyone should read this book. For me, it put everything that is happening today in perspective and gave me another way of looking at current events. Recommended!

Thanks Random House and Netgalley for the early chance to read this wonderful book! I heard Kurt Andersen discussing this on The Atlantic podcast and knew immediately I needed to read this. I must admit, I haven't finished yet (it's long) but since the book has already been published, I wanted to get my review done. I love Mr. Andersen's writing style, it's very engaging. It's an interesting take on America's current state of craziness and while I may not agree with all of the author's examples (some seem a stretch), they're fun to read about anyway. I will definitely be finishing the book and will post a Goodreads review when I do. In the meantime, I recommend everyone pick up a copy of this and see what you think.

By far, the most ambitious of all of these cultural reviews is Kurt Andersen’s Fantasyland. The book’s subtitle: “How America went haywire: a 500-year history” provides a bread crumb of information for those aware of historical dates. Five hundred years ago takes us to 1517, which was the year that Martin Luther nailed the ninety-five theses to the door at the church at Wittenberg, the event that is considered to be the start of the Protestant Reformation. (It should be noted that there had been men previous to Luther who had attempted to reform the Catholic Church, but each of them had been forced into hiding or else had been executed for heresy.) Luther was successful because Pope Leo X (a member of the Medici family) was distracted by war. But Luther’s shot across the Church’s bow was aided by his access to mechanical printing, which made it much easier to spread word of his call for reformation to Christians across Europe.

Andersen makes an effective argument that Luther’s declaration that he knew more about how to run the church than the Pope, followed later by Jean Calvin and other reformers’ insistence that each Christian should read and interpret the Bible for themselves, opened up an age where each person was told to create their own sense of Biblical truth. Once the Church was no longer the sole arbiter of what was true, he argues, we were ready for the settling of America (where the strictest of the Protestants settled) and the American declaration that it had special access to the truth and God’s blessing.

Today, Americans still believe that they have special access to the truth, although American truth is counter-factual to everything we know to be real.

Among some of the more unbelievable of Americans’ beliefs:

-More than a third of Americans believe that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the media, science, and government.
–Two-thirds of Americans believe that angels and demons not only exist, but they are “active” in the world.
–A third believe that extraterrestrials have either recently visited or are currently living on the earth.
–A quarter of Americans believe the previous president was the Antichrist.

While one can obviously not draw a straight line between Martin Luther and Donald Trump, Andersen constructs over the course of his book a brilliant argument about how a combination of factors that began with Americans’ belief that they occupied a nation that had a special relationship with God has led our history from Jamestown to the present day to the “fantasyland” we occupy.

As he describes it:

“America was created by true believers and passionate dreamers, by hucksters and their suckers – which over the course of four centuries has made us susceptible to fantasy, as epitomized by everything from Salem hunting witches to Joseph Smith creating Mormonism, from P. T. Barnum to Henry David Thoreau to speaking in tongues, from Hollywood to Scientology to conspiracy theories, from Walt Disney to Billy Graham to Ronald Reagan to Oprah Winfrey to Donald Trump. In other words: mix epic individualism with extreme religion; mix show business with everything else; let all that steep and simmer for a few centuries; run it through the anything-goes 1960s and the Internet age; the result is the America we inhabit today, where reality and fantasy are weirdly and dangerously blurred and commingled.”

If you have an interest in understanding the state of our country and its leadership and people today, then Fantasyland may be the best place to start.

BUYBARNES & NOBLEINDIEBOUNDAMAZONIBOOKS

Through the Looking Glass! Instead of titling it Wonderland, the author titled it Fantasyland. A distinction without much of a difference, in my view. I received this book free from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. Written by NYT best-selling author Kurt Andersen, and published by Random House in 2017, the book is subtitled How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History. The author is uncannily perceptive in his diagnosis of what is happening in America today, and I really can’t say that I disagree with him much. In fact, I had already concluded much of what he relates in the very first chapter of his book.

The book is divided into six parts that are further subdivided into a total of forty-six chapters. Chapter One serves as an Introduction to the book, and clearly lays out the author’s position, along with some of the evidence to support it. He describes how Americans, once anchored firmly in reality, have become rooted in fantasy through a process that began, most recently, in the 1960s. His arguments are compelling and convincing, to say the least. He tells us, for example, that: “Little by little, for centuries, then more and more and faster and faster during the last half-century, Americans have given ourselves over to all kinds of magical thinking, anything-goes relativism, and belief in fanciful explanation, small and large fantasies that console or thrill or terrify us.” He adds that: “We have passed through the looking glass and down the rabbit hole. America has mutated into Fantasyland.” Americans have so become captivated by their fantasies that: Truth in general becomes flexible, a matter of personal preference.”

Anderson points out (correctly, in my view) that: “. . . mix epic individualism with extreme religion; mix show business with everything else; let all that steep and simmer for a few centuries; run it through the anything-goes 1960s and the Internet age; the result is the America we inhabit today, where reality and fantasy are weirdly and dangerously blurred and commingled.” Conclusion: “The footings for Fantasyland had been set.” Today, America is a nation where every individual is gloriously free to construct any version of reality he or she devoutly believes to be true.” Don’t believe it? Look only at the presidency of Donald J. Trump, and the daily lies that emanate from the White House, and then see the number of Americans who firmly believe those lies, despite ample evidence of their departure from Truth and Reality.

The influence of religion, and especially that of America’s unique brand of Protestantism, is a major factor in the process of the departure of many, many Americans from rationalism and realism into fantasy and magical thinking. Advertising is another contributing factor, although not as much as religion. The author describes in vivid detail how the seeds for American delusions were firmly planted by religious beliefs in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. In fact, it seems that the two biggest influencers on America’s descent from reality to fantasy have been religion and advertising. Andersen also points out something really scary: America’s descent into fantasyland has infiltrated our country’s colleges and universities to a startling degree. Yikes!

The author tells us that the era of Ancient Greece that brought about such scholars as Sophocles, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and others, “. . . lasted less than two centuries, after which Athens returned to astrology and magical cures and alchemy. . .” As to why this is, Oxford classicist Eric Dodd hypothesized that it was because the Greeks “. . . found freedom too scary, frightened by the new idea that their lives weren’t predestined or managed by gods and they really were on their own. Maybe America’s Classical period has also lasted two centuries, 1800 to 2000, give or take a few decades on each end.” Sounds plausible to me.

Although Andersen has no “actionable agenda” to solve the problem, he suggests that those of us who consider ourselves to be sane and reasonable should “. . . not give acquaintances and friends and family members free passes.” In other words, do not remain quiet when you hear outrageous fantasies from these people. Speak up and point out the fallacies!

The book is meticulously researched and painstakingly detailed — perhaps to a fault. It was difficult to review well because it is so very chock full of information. There is an enormous amount of detail in this book, detail that is used to support the author’s conclusions, to be certain, but probably more than strictly necessary to support his points. At times, the book becomes a very tedious read. We get it. American Protestantism is unique in the world. We don’t need to know the details of every single sect and denomination ever seen in our country.

There is much, much more in this book, including detailed descriptions of contemporary politics and how the descent into fantasyland has, and will, affect all Americans — even those of us who choose to remain firmly in touch with reality. The book is well sourced, with footnotes at the end of each chapter. Every sane, rational American with a desire to see our nation continue to move forward should read and ponder this book. It is an important work that is extremely well-researched and cogently presented.

Fantasyland is a history of the United States through one particular lens – our infatuation with fantasy from hyper-religiosity to science denialism. One way of looking at American colonization, for example, is that was driven by dissenters, people seeking freedom to worship according to their own beliefs. Another way is to see them as fantasists seeking a place to indulge their penchant to invent new doctrine. Looking through Kurt Andersen’s lens, it is though our history is a progression of natural selection for credulity and fantasy – a kind of memetics of irrationality.

Fantasyland begins at the beginning, with colonization and westward expansion and manifest destiny. The various movements and historical events that shaped our drift toward irrationality and the countervailing checks of rationalism are reviewed with glorious snark and delicious detail. It is a book full of the kind of gossipy details that can make history not just interesting, but downright amusing.

Much of this history is focused on the increasing power and stranglehold the Evangelical movement has on America. Looking at why we are so different from Europe in our fervent pursuit of charismatic supernaturalism, it makes sense that a country founded by people who created a new religion that made them intolerant of and intolerable to their home country would keep inventing new religions over and over and over through the centuries – increasingly fantastical and untethered.



Andersen has a gift for finding the salacious bits of historical minutia that will perfectly enliven his stories of hucksters, grifters, and true believers who have been the drivers of our derailing train. He is not seeking to persuade those in thrall to irrationality, so he pulls no punches. He is assuming the people reading his book perceive the irrational as deluded fantasists and want to know how in the world we ended up with so many of them. Why do so many believe conspiracy theories? Why do people think vaccines are dangerous and that GMO foods are dangerous? Why do people fear fluoride but not climate change? Why are people afraid of Shariah law, but not Creation “Science?” It’s a good question and Andersen makes a good case for it being a product of longstanding cultural values that prioritize individualism and the freedom to believe whatever the hell you want – no matter how irrational it may be.

He finds the enablers among the intelligentsia who argue there is no such thing as reality, that the idea of truth and facts is just oppressive. Reading some of the quotes, I could only think, “Just kill me now.” And yet, we know that irrationality is triumphant and untruth reigns when we have a conspiracy theorist who has no capacity for telling fact from fiction in the White House. The political party in control of every branch of government is run by irrationalists who deny climate science, economic facts of history and cling to superstition and falsehood. We are, in a word, screwed.

Andersen, unfortunately, has not advice on how to get out of the mess other than to be a voice crying in the wilderness – refuting the lies, standing up for the truth. Of course, research shows that presenting someone who believes a conspiracy with facts to disprove their delusion only reinforces their belief. After all, if it were not true, why would the elite go to so much effort to show it was false?

Fantasyland is a depressing, funny, infuriating, and entertaining history. It sometimes feels repetitious, in part because so much of the road to irrationality is a complex interacting mutually-reinforcing feedback loop of bad actors and true believers and in part because Andersen sometimes beats a dying horse. He makes his case, I am persuaded, but he keeps on making the case and keeps on persuading past the point of usefulness.

I liked Fantasyland. The problem is, the folks who really need it, won’t read it. For the rest of us, it reinforces our fears and perhaps, makes us feel a bit smug. It’s tough to feel smug, though, in a country where climate change is literally battering our coastline and burning our interior while the Denier in Chief pretends that it’s all just coincidence.

Fantasyland was released on September 5th. I received an e-galley for review from the publisher through NetGalley.

Fantasyland at Penguin Random House
Kurt Andersen author site.

Kurt Andersen covered a lot of ground in this book. He set up a compelling story from beginning to end about how America did, in fact, go haywire. As someone who isn't huge on history books, this one never really felt like that. He does take you through 500 years, but it's through a much different lens that what you'll get from a history textbook. I would definitely recommend this book to pretty much anyone.

Americans are crazy. Kurt Andersen should know; he’s one of them, though he insists he is sane. Don’t all crazy people say that?

Fantasyland, which is published today, is a voyage through American history, a look at how Americcover114611-medium.pngan society reached the point where someone like Donald Trump could be elected as President of the United States. Trump, as Anderson explains, did not spring suddenly out of nowhere. He is rather the logical progression of American thinking over centuries. What Anderson cannot say is whether it is possible for a return to sanity.

Not being American I had expected this to be a rather humorous book, a chance to laugh at the foibles of our neighbour to the south. However, I found little to laugh at.

This is definitely a selective approach to history and, sadly, I think too much influenced by Andersen’s own personal demons. There is no doubt the United States has produced some odd religious behavior in the past four centuries, but he treats fringe as mainstream, and indeed spends his first ten chapters attacking Christianity. It seemed to me though that his attacks were ideologically based as opposed to reality based, more fantasy than substance. Which is a shame because this could have been a good book.

After all, who wouldn’t want to know more about the factors that caused Americans to elect Donald Trump as their president, a blurring of reality and reality television on a grand scale. Unfortunately, Fantasyland failed to really give the answers. To say that Americans have for arguable – but Christians would respond that their religions is based on history and reality, fact, not fiction. Nowhere do I get the impression in this polemic that Andersen was ever willing to seriously look at the historical roots of Christianity. Instead what I got was an atheist’s obsession along the lines of Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins. It’s all the church’s fault. Christianity is evil and should be ignored if it can’t be obliterated. Entertaining, but not exactly balanced.

There were times I was annoyed when he would mention the ideas of someone and not give a name. To me this is sloppy. Tough to evaluate the words of a “leading academic” if there is no name attached. Useful too if you just want to make a point sound authoritative.

This volume was touted by the publisher as a “must read” for anyone who wants “to understand the politics and culture of twenty-first century America.” It doesn’t quite succeed.

Even were I to accept Andersen’s culture musings, his political analysis is weak to non-existent. If I were to write a book on the topic (and I don’t intend to) I could make the argument that Donald Trump is not the product of an American fantasy culture but rather of an extremely cynical political establishment that has abused a binary political system. It’s not the church’s fault, but rather the responsibility of the founding fathers who rejected the Westminster political tradition and came up with the system the US still uses today.

As Andersen points out, those founding fathers were anything but Christian. Yet he still blames the Church for America’s problems. Fantasyland indeed.



A review copy of this book was provided by Random House Publishing Group.

Ever since our last presidential election I have been reading all the history and politics I can find that might explain how this happened. I've read a lot of great books. This isn't one. This is too long, too biased and too short on facts. It spends too much time trying to be funny or snark and not really succeeding. The author has an obvious anti-Christian bias and just keeps circling back. I am not a religious person, and I got annoyed. I can't imagine what Christian readers would feel, but it almost certainly wouldn't be anything favorable. I will not be recommending this to anyone who wants to learn anything.

As a fan of both popular and scholarly histories, I was drawn to this book because of its subject. American dreams, huckersterism, and utopian thinking are consistently fascinating elements of our country's social history. Whether you're reading or listening, a good storyteller can make even familiar stories enjoyable to hear again. Andersen certainly has both the historical knowledge and storytelling ability. Unfortunately, the author’s repetitive mockery of religion and the people participating in it interrupts that storytelling. Scathing remarks don’t equal wit. Whether one is religious or not, it’s frustrating when one paragraph after another breaks up narrative flow with tedious pejoratives that seem very similar to those in a previous paragraph. Details from the author’s research would make for a more engaging reading experience, and spark a reader’s curiosity about the various movements, subcultures, and institutions -- not to mention an interest in Andersen’s other work. Yes, an author’s entitled to a point of view, but many of these historical events are already intriguing, juicy stories. The hectoring tone makes it seem like the author doesn’t trust readers to think for themselves; just who is this book for? There’s some gold among the dross, but ultimately I cannot recommend Fantasyland.