How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World: A Short History of Modern DelusionsPublicAffairs, 2005 M07 6 - 416 pages What characterizes our era? Cults, quacks, gurus, irrational panics, moral confusion and an epidemic of mumbo-jumbo, that's what. In How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World, Francis Wheen brilliantly laments the extraordinary rise of superstition, relativism and emotional hysteria. From Middle Eastern fundamentalism to the rise of lotteries, astrology to mysticism, poststructuralism to the Third Way, Wheen shows that there has been a pervasive erosion of Enlightenment values, which have been displaced by nonsense. And no country has a more vivid parade of the bogus and bizarre than the one founded to embody Enlightenment values: the USA. In turn comic, indignant, outraged, and just plain baffled by the idiocy of it all, How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World is a masterful depiction of the absurdity of our times and a plea that we might just think a little more and believe a little less. |
From inside the book
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Page 11
A Short History of Modern Delusions Francis Wheen. of America . It was President Carter's subsequent decision to let the Shah enter the U.S. for medical treatment that provoked the storming of the American embassy and the “ hostage ...
A Short History of Modern Delusions Francis Wheen. of America . It was President Carter's subsequent decision to let the Shah enter the U.S. for medical treatment that provoked the storming of the American embassy and the “ hostage ...
Page 12
... American nuns and a lay worker were murdered by the Salvadorean junta , Kirkpatrick expressed no sympathy at all for the victims but continued to recite her glib theory of autocracy . “ It bothered no one in the administra- tion that ...
... American nuns and a lay worker were murdered by the Salvadorean junta , Kirkpatrick expressed no sympathy at all for the victims but continued to recite her glib theory of autocracy . “ It bothered no one in the administra- tion that ...
Page 14
... American evangelists for untrammelled global capitalism : There is no alternative . It sounds like a tyrant's rallying cry from the pre - Enlightenment . Instead of “ Dare to know , ” we are offered an injunction whose menacing and ...
... American evangelists for untrammelled global capitalism : There is no alternative . It sounds like a tyrant's rallying cry from the pre - Enlightenment . Instead of “ Dare to know , ” we are offered an injunction whose menacing and ...
Page 15
... American Enterprise Institute , dispatched Professor Herbert Stein , who had chaired the Council of Economic Advisers under Presi- dents Nixon and Ford , to spend three weeks in Britain during the summer of 1979. He returned in high ...
... American Enterprise Institute , dispatched Professor Herbert Stein , who had chaired the Council of Economic Advisers under Presi- dents Nixon and Ford , to spend three weeks in Britain during the summer of 1979. He returned in high ...
Page 16
... American politicians to heed the British example. “What happens in Britain is of great importance to us. Ever since the founding of the colonies in the New World, Britain has been a major source of our economic and political thought. In ...
... American politicians to heed the British example. “What happens in Britain is of great importance to us. Ever since the founding of the colonies in the New World, Britain has been a major source of our economic and political thought. In ...
Contents
1 | |
9 | |
2 Old SnakeOil New Bottles | 39 |
3 Its the End of the World as We Know It | 62 |
4 The Demolition Merchants of Reality | 75 |
5 The Catastrophists | 113 |
6 With God on Our Side | 153 |
7 Us and Them | 161 |
8 The New Romantics | 178 |
9 Forward to the Past | 206 |
10 Voodoo Revisited | 238 |
Notes | 289 |
Index | 306 |
Other editions - View all
How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World: A Short History of Modern Delusions Francis Wheen Limited preview - 2005 |
How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World: A Short History of Modern Delusions Francis Wheen Limited preview - 2005 |
How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World: A Short History of Modern Delusions Francis Wheen Limited preview - 2012 |
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