A profound and provocative examination of America in crisis, where unemployment, deindustrialization, and a bitter hopelessness and malaise have resulted in an epidemic of diseases of despair—drug abuse, gambling, suicide, magical thinking, xenophobia, and a culture of sadism and hate.
America, says Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Chris Hedges, is convulsed by an array of pathologies that have arisen out of profound hopelessness, a bitter despair and a civil society that has ceased to function. The opioid crisis, the retreat into gambling to cope with economic distress, the pornification of culture, the rise of magical thinking, the celebration of sadism, hate, and plagues of suicides are the physical manifestations of a society that is being ravaged by corporate pillage and a failed democracy. As our society unravels, we also face global upheaval caused by catastrophic climate change. All these ills presage a frightening reconfiguration of the nation and the planet.
Donald Trump rode this disenchantment to power. In America: The Farewell Tour, Hedges argues that neither political party, now captured by corporate power, addresses the systemic problem. Until our corporate coup d’état is reversed these diseases will grow and ravage the country. A poignant cry reported from communities across the country, America: The Farewell Tour seeks to jolt us out of our complacency while there is still time.
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“Chris Hedges is perhaps today’s most important public intellectual, and America: the Farewell Tour is perhaps his most important book.”
— Derrick Jensen, author of A Language Older Than Words
“Journalist Hedges’s latest critique of late-stage capitalist America is forceful and direct.”
— Publishers Weekly“[A] fiery sermon that weighs the nation and finds it wanting.”
— Kirkus ReviewsChris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, host of the Emmy Award–nominated RT America show On Contact, and author of two New York Times bestsellers. War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He was a foreign correspondent and bureau chief in the Middle East and the Balkans for fifteen years for the New York Times. He previously worked overseas for the Dallas Morning News, Christian Science Monitor, and NPR. He holds a Master of Divinity from Harvard University and has taught at Columbia University, New York University, Princeton University, and the University of Toronto. He has taught college credit courses through Rutgers University since 2013 in the New Jersey prison system.
Fred Sanders, an actor and Earphones Award–winning narrator, has received critics’ praise for his audio narrations that range from nonfiction, memoir, and fiction to mystery and suspense. He been seen on Broadway in The Buddy Holly Story, in national tours for Driving Miss Daisy and Big River, and on such television shows as Seinfeld, The West Wing, Will and Grace, Numb3rs,Titus, and Malcolm in the Middle. His films include Sea of Love, The Shadow, and the Oscar-nominated short Culture. He is a native New Yorker and Yale graduate.