America: The Farewell Tour

America: The Farewell Tour

<b>Chris Hedges’s profound and unsettling examination of America in crisis is “an exceedingly…provocative book, certain to arouse controversy, but offering a point of view that needs to be heard” (<i>Booklist</i>), about how bitter hopelessness and malaise have resulted in a culture of sadism and hate.</b><br /><br />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.<br /> <br /> Donald Trump rode this disenchantment to power. In his “forceful and direct” (<i>Publishers Weekly</i>) <i>America: The Farewell Tour</i>, Hedges argues that neither political party, now captured by corporate power, addresses the systemic problem. Until our corporate <i>coup d’état</i> is reversed these diseases will grow and ravage the country. “With sharply observed detail, Hedges writes a requiem for the American dream” (<i>Kirkus Reviews</i>) and seeks to jolt us out of our complacency while there is still time.