Idiot America : how stupidity became a virtue in the Land of the Free

EDITORIAL REVIEW: **NATIONAL BESTSELLER****The three Great Premises of Idiot America:· Any theory is valid if it sells books, soaks up ratings, or otherwise moves units· Anything can be true if someone says it loudly enough· Fact is that which enough people believe. Truth is determined by how fervently they believe it** With his trademark wit and insight, veteran journalist Charles Pierce delivers a gut-wrenching, side-splitting lament about the glorification of ignorance in the United States. Pierce asks how a country founded on intellectual curiosity has somehow deteriorated into a nation of simpletons more apt to vote for an *American Idol* contestant than a presidential candidate. But his thunderous denunciation is also a secret call to action, as he hopes that somehow, being intelligent will stop being a stigma, and that pinheads will once again be pitied, not celebrated. Erudite and razor-sharp, *Idiot America* is at once an invigorating history lesson, a cutting cultural critique, and a bullish appeal to our smarter selves. The Culture Wars Are Over and the Idiots Have Won

A veteran journalist's acidically funny, righteously angry lament about the glorification of ignorance in the United States.

In the midst of a career-long quest to separate the smart from the pap, Charles Pierce had a defining moment at the Creation Museum in Kentucky, where he observed a dinosaur. Wearing a saddle.... But worse than this was when the proprietor exclaimed to a cheering crowd, “We are taking the dinosaurs back from the evolutionists!” He knew then and there it was time to try and salvage the Land of the Enlightened, buried somewhere in this new Home of the Uninformed.

With his razor-sharp wit and erudite reasoning, Pierce delivers a gut-wrenching, side-splitting lament about the glorification of ignorance in the United States, and how a country founded on intellectual curiosity has somehow deteriorated into a nation of simpletons more apt to vote for an American Idol contestant than a presidential candidate.

With Idiot America, Pierce's thunderous denunciation is also a secret call to action, as he hopes that somehow, being intelligent will stop being a stigma, and that pinheads will once again be pitied, not celebrated.

The American way of idiocy : The prince of cranks ; The war on expertise ; Beyond Atlantis ; The Templars in town Truth : Radio nowhere ; God and Judge Jones Consequences : A woman dies on Beech Street ; How we look at the sea ; The principles of automatic pilot Mr. Madison's library : Torture in New Hampshire ; Mr. Madison's library. Traces how uneducated buffoonery became popular to the point of representing American culture, and expresses the author's hope that the nation will eventually value intellect more than reality television