The Way We Live Now: from The Age of American Unreason in a Culture of Lies

In this selection from her searing cultural history of the last half century, Susan Jacoby chronicles the menacing surge of anti-rationalism in contemporary American life and the degradation of public speech in presidential rhetoric, radio broadcast, television, and internet media where homogenized language and thought reinforce each other in circular fashion.

At today's critical political juncture, in which boastful ignorance has infected public discourse at the highest levels of governmen...