The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics, and Religion at the Twilight of the American Empire
A REVELATORY AND DARKLY COMIC ADVENTURE THROUGH A NATION ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN—FROM THE HALLS OF CONGRESS TO THE BASES OF BAGHDAD TO THE APOCALYPTIC CHURCHES OF THE HEARTLANDRolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi set out to describe the nature of George Bush’s America in the post-9/11 era and...
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A REVELATORY AND DARKLY COMIC ADVENTURE THROUGH A NATION ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN—FROM THE HALLS OF CONGRESS TO THE BASES OF BAGHDAD TO THE APOCALYPTIC CHURCHES OF THE HEARTLANDRolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi set out to describe the nature of George Bush’s America in the post-9/11 era and ended up vomiting demons in an evangelical church in Texas, riding the streets of Baghdad in an American convoy to nowhere, searching for phantom fighter jets in Congress, and falling into the rabbit hole of the 9/11 Truth Movement.Matt discovered in his travels across the country that the resilient blue state/red state narrative of American politics had become irrelevant. A large and growing chunk of the American population was so turned off—or radicalized—by electoral chicanery, a spineless news media, and the increasingly blatant lies from our leaders (“they hate us for our freedom”) that they abandoned the political mainstream altogether. They joined what he calls The Great Derangement.Taibbi tells the story of this new American madness by inserting himself into four defining American subcultures: The Military, where he finds himself mired in the grotesque black comedy of the American occupation of Iraq; The System, where he follows the money-slicked path of legislation in Congress; The Resistance, where he doubles as chief public antagonist and undercover member of the passionately bonkers 9/11 Truth Movement; and The Church, where he infiltrates a politically influential apocalyptic mega-ministry in Texas and enters the lives of its desperate congregants. Together these four interwoven adventures paint a portrait of a nation dangerously out of touch with reality and desperately searching for answers in all the wrong places.Funny, smart, and a little bit heartbreaking, The Great Derangement is an audaciously reported, sobering, and illuminating
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Format: ebook
ISBN:
9780385525701 (0385525702)
Publish date: May 6th 2008
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Pages no: 272
Edition language: English
Category:
Non Fiction,
Humor,
History,
Literature,
American,
Economics,
War,
Culture,
Religion,
Politics,
Sociology
I wanted to read something mean and funny, only to feel a bit bad when he says in the introduction he doesn't want to be that guy that people only think of because he's mean and funny, but still. Not bad otherwise, particularly for the look into the specific varieties of crazy out there. As a former...
Generally speaking, I'm a big fan of Matt Taibbi's writing. Having said that, I thought the introduction to the book was misleading. The introduction makes it sound like Congress, the military, 9/11 truthers and member's of Hagee's church will be given equal time when it's mostly about the church w...
Wants to be HST, isn't, but that's okay after all. Also, pretend I gave it a 3.5I enjoyed reading this, it was great on the COMMUTE. I don't know enough about what he writes about to properly critique the book, but I learned something and appreciated his argument that people of all political affilia...
I actually had a lot to say about it, so feel free to go over to my blog and read my review on it.