Fantasyland, Kurt Andersen

Fantasyland:  How American went haywire: a 500-year history by Kurt Andersen is a book about United States history and how love of the fantastic and sensational has led to Trump.   This book received the Forkosch Award by the Council for Secular Humanism (the award is now given by the American Historical Association).

Started: 2/27/2020
Completed: 1/2/2021
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: my wife

Words for which I sought help:

brobdignagian --  gigantic

charticle -- a combination of text, images, and graphics that takes the place of a full article.

gradgrind -- one that is patently and usually as a matter of outspoken policy marked by a materialistic and philistine outlook; an uninspired and assiduous seeker after facts

muscilage -- a viscous secretion or bodily fluid; an adhesive or glue

Schengen Area -- an area in the European Union within which no passports are needed to move between countries

solipsism -- the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist

tendentious -- expressing or intending to promote a particular cause or point of view, especially a controversial one.

virtusoic -- displaying or characterized by exceptional technical skill in music or another artistic pursuit.

Review:

This is a long book that makes a huge number of important points and weaves a fabric that really should be seen as a whole.  Because I cannot hope to provide that in a several paragraph review, I pulled a few quotations from the book that I think it is important to remember:

"Instead of squarely facing the uncomfortable facts -- slavery was wrong, secession a calamitous mistake--they shifted into excuse and deny mode.  For a great many white Southerners, defeat mad them not contrite and peaceable (like, say, Germans and Japanese after World War II) but permanently pissed off."

"Our special American alloy of Protestantism and the Enlightenment also generated our extreme, self-righteous individualism.  I have searched for the truth and discovered it (Protestantism and Enlightenment).  My intuitions are equal to the facts (Protestant).  My skepticism is profound (Enlightenment) except concerning my own beliefs (Protestant).  Who I am is whatever I imagine myself to be (both), and You're [sic] not the boss of me (both)."

"We must call out the dangerously untrue and unreal."

"Nations and societies have survived and recovered from far more terrible swerves, eras that felt cataclysmic as they were happening.  the good news, in other words, is that America may now e at peak Fantasyland.  We can hope."