Fantasyland : how America went haywire : a 500-year history

Andersen, Kurt 1954- (author.).

Summary: Explains how the influences of dreamers, zealots, hucksters, and superstitious groups shaped America's tendency toward a rich fantasy life, citing the roles of individuals from P.T. Barnum to Donald Trump in perpetuating conspiracy theories, self-delusion, and magical thinking.

Record details

ISBN: 9781588366870
ISBN: 1588366871
ISBN: 9781400067213
ISBN: 1400067219
Physical Description: remote
1 online resource (xiii, 462 pages)
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: New York : Random House, [2017]

Content descriptions

General Note:	Includes index. Electronic book.
Formatted Contents Note:	Now entering Fantasyland -- Part I: The conjuring of America: 1517-1789. I believe, therefore I am right : the Protestants ; All that glitters : the gold-seekers ; Building our own private heaven on Earth : the Puritans ; The God-given freedom to believe in God ; Imaginary friends and enemies : the early satanic panics ; The first me century : religion gets American ; Meanwhile, in the eighteenth-century reality-based community -- Part II: United States of amazing: the 1800s. The first great delirium ; The all-American fan fiction of Joseph Smith, prophet ; Quack nation : magical but modern ; Fantastic business : the gold rush inflection point ; In search of monsters to destroy : the conspiracy theory habit ; The war between states of mind ; Ten million little houses on the prairie ; Fantasy industrialized -- Part III: A long arc bending toward reason: 1900-1960. Progress and backlash ; The biggest backlash : brand-new old-time religion ; The business of America is show business ; Big rock candy mountains : utopia in the suburbs and the sun ; The 1950s seemed so normal -- Part IV: Big bang : the 1960s and '70s. Big bang : the hippies ; Big bang : the intellectuals ; Big bang : the Christians ; Big bang : politics and government and conspiracies ; Big bang : living in a land of entertainment -- Part V: Fantasyland scales : from the 1980s through the turn of the century. Making make-believe more realistic and real life more make-believe ; Forever young : kids "r" us syndrome ; The Reagan era and the start of the digital age ; American religion from the turn of the millennium ; Our wilder Christianities : belief and practice ; America versus the godless civilized world : why are we so exceptional? ; Magical but not necessarily Christian, spiritual but not religious ; Blue-chip witch doctors : the re-enchantment of medicine ; How the mainstream enabled fantasyland : squishies, cynics, and believers ; Anything goes -- unless it picks my pocket or breaks my leg -- Part VI: The problem with fantasyland : from the 1980s to the present and beyond. The inmates running the asylum decide monsters are everywhere ; Reality is a conspiracy : the x-filing of America ; Mad as hell, the new voice of the people ; When the GOP went off the rails ; Liberals denying science ; Gun crazy ; Final fantasy-industrial complex ; Our inner children? They're going to Disney World! ; The economic dreamtime ; As fantasyland goes, so goes the nation.
Source of Description Note:	Print version record.