Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I can't remember the last time I enjoyed reading a book as much as this one. I learned something new on almost every page, and the book is full of brief references to things that sent me off to do a bit more research (did you know that Harvard has a program in placebo studies? headed by a director with a B.A. degree). Anderson starts with the earliest American colonists and takes us up to the present day. We hear about the goofy religions (he's not afraid to name names, and some devotees of these probably won't be happy), and centuries of fads and fallacies. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the book is showing how the same impulse ("find your own truth, don't trust anybody else") applied not just to the hippies but ended up giving tise to post-modern academic relativism of the "truth doesn't matter" school. And eventually to the deniers of climate change and evolution. Why is it that a third of Americans are absolutely sure that the earth is only 6000 years old, a view that is pretty much dead in all other developed countries? The author's explanation makes a lot of sense. And the book describes how we ended up today living in a combinationn of Disneyland and professional wrestling. An important book that goes a long way to explaining what's going on in America today.