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I found Kurt Anderson’s “Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500 Year History” to be sometimes thought provoking, many times annoying, and often teetering between factual evidence and gross generalizations of historical movements. Anderson’s premise that Americans have a hardwired fantasy embedded DNA that serves as a catalyst for shaping and creating our own realities, along with the subsequent “false facts,” is an interesting theory. The author follows a credible, if sometimes disjointed approach, of linking historical movements and events to the American psyche. I found his linkage of the California Gold Rush in 1848 to a rebirth of Americans’ pioneering and “get rich” embedded fantasies to be spot on. However, his broad stroke generalizations that all liberals “swear by the values of the 1960’s" and all conservatives “demonize” the same decade to be less convincing. However, other generalizations are ridiculous overreaches. Anderson argues that adults who wear chinos, jeans, and polo shirts in the workplace would rather stay in "play clothes" since their mothers no longer dressed them and that employers who stocked work places with toys and games (e.g. Slinkys and Mr. Potato Heads) were harbingers of make-believe that could dangerously leach into real life. Many times his narrative becomes annoying and tiresome since repeatedly after the author has stated his ideas and supporting arguments, Anderson continues to belabor the same ideas and arguments throughout multiple chapters. In particular, Anderson’s constant attack on persons of faith becomes repetitive and tedious to read and I found myself skimming sections since he did not reveal any new insights. The book title suggests a factual treatment of how Americans perceptions and beliefs shaped by the various cultural, intellectual, philosophical, and technical revolutions that influenced America in the past 500 years. However, even though the author employs footnotes, the book is more a series of loosely tied together essays expounding on Anderson’s beliefs and prejudices, then a serious work of historical research. Particularly troubling is Anderson's inability to entertain and explore multiple interpretations of American historical movements and events; instead much of his commentary comes across as callous and elitist. For example, in the chapter dealing with the Puritans, Anderson makes the following grossly over simplified and callous generalization of the English settlers in the New World during the 1600’s. “In other words, America was founded by a nutty religious cult.” [Puritans] English colonists settled Jamestown in 1607, thirteen years prior to the Puritans landing at Plymouth. Economic motives prompted colonization in Virginia. The Virginia Company of London wanted to expand English trade and obtain a wider market for English manufactured goods. In addition, the first representative legislative assembly in the New World met in Jamestown in 1619. Also, by 1620 there were approximately 400 colonists in Virginia with only 100 Puritans in Plymouth. Colonists settled Virginia long before Plymouth, had a four hundred percent larger population by 1620 and colonization motivated by economic incentives. Therefore, it’s more accurate and factual to characterize that America (New World) was founded by pragmatic organizers of the Virginia Company of London who hoped for financial profit from their investments in shares of company stock. Anderson’s disdain of the Puritan’s theology literally drips from the pages of Fantasyland as he describes them as “a nutty religious cult,” “wacked-out visionaries,” and “crazed” fanatics. However, the author fails to discuss that Puritanism is not only a religious belief, but also a philosophy, a combination of life styles with living values. Many of the mainstream values in America, such as individualism, egalitarian, and optimism can find their origin in the Puritanism of colonial times. Surely, American individualism, democracy, acquiring wealth through hard work and thrift, and devotion to popular education, all tracing their foundations to Puritanism, are American values and traits that fundamentally impacted and shaped the American psyche during the past 500 years and today, deserve discussion instead of receiving no mentions in Anderson’s Fantasyland. One unintentional "benefit" from a reading of Anderson's Fantasyland that the author may not have foreseen, will be readers encouraged to exercise critical thinking, separate fact from opinion, over generalizations versus facts, and a thoughtful shifting of ideas through their own reasoning prism to explore if Anderson's "reality" of the impact of historical movements and events on the American psyche has merit. Anderson decries the hucksters, con artists, religious idealists and others throughout history who have beguiled the unsuspecting masses. Should not that same litmus reality test be applied to the author of Fantasyland? I found myself engaging in numerous fact checks as I read through this narrative resulting in some of the author's egregious over generalizations and biases being highlighted in this review. In the end, I found Anderson’s Fantasyland to be somewhat thought provoking, but flawed with many over generalizations, significant omissions, too much of the author’s biases and prejudices, and marred by an elitist undercurrent that detracted from more objective treatments of the topic. Rating, two stars.