Publisher Description
The bestselling book revealing why Americans are so fearful, and why we fear the wrong things-now updated for the age of Trump
In the age of Trump, our society is defined by fear. Indeed, three out of four Americans say they feel more fearful today than they did only a couple decades ago. But are we living in exceptionally perilous times? In his bestselling book The Culture of Fear, sociologist Barry Glassner demonstrates that it is our perception of danger that has increased, not the actual level of risk. Glassner exposes the people and organizations that manipulate our perceptions and profit from our fears: politicians who win elections by heightening concerns about crime and drug use even as rates for both are declining; advocacy groups that raise money by exaggerating the prevalence of particular diseases; TV shows that create a new scare every week to garner ratings. Glassner spells out the prices we pay for social panics: the huge sums of money that go to waste on unnecessary programs and products as well as time and energy spent worrying about our fears.
All the while, we are distracted from the true threats, from climate change to worsening inequality. In this updated edition of a modern classic, Glassner examines the current panics over vaccination and "political correctness" and reveals why Donald Trump's fearmongering is so dangerously effective.
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We become what we behold. And what we behold in our public media is an America more terrifying than it actually is. Combining meticulous scholarship with a winning prose style, Barry Glassner shows how and why our media are scaring us to death. The book is a calming as it is serious, and offers a sound intellectual alternative to Prozac.
—
Neil Postman, author of Amusing Ourselves to Death
About Barry Glassner
Barry Glassner is a professor of sociology at the University of
Southern California. He is the author of seven books and countless articles
that have appeared in magazines and newspapers around the world. His academic
research has appeared in the most prestigious journals in sociology and
psychiatry. He lives in Los Angeles.
About the Narrators
Michael Moore is an award-winning filmmaker, director, and author. As of 2010, his documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 was the highest grossing documentary of all time, taking in over 200 million dollars worldwide. His film Bowling for Columbine won the Anniversary Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and an Academy Award for Documentary Feature. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Here Comes Trouble: Stories of My Life, Downsize This!: Threats from an Unarmed American, and Will They Ever Trust Us Again?: Letters from the War Zone, among others. Moore has also worked in television and acting. In 2005, Moore started the annual Traverse City Film Festival in Traverse City, Michigan.
William Dufris attended the University of Southern Maine in Portland-Gorham before pursuing a career in voice work in London and then the United States. He has won more than twenty AudioFile Earphones Awards, was voted one of the Best Voices at the End of the Century by AudioFile magazine, and won the prestigious Audie Award in 2012 for best nonfiction narration. He lives with his family in Maine.