Product Description

A REVELATORY AND DARKLY COMIC ADVENTURE THROUGH A NATION ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN—FROM THE HALLS OF CONGRESS TO THE BASES OF BAGHDAD TO THE APOCALYPTIC CHURCHES OF THE HEARTLAND


Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi set out to describe the nature of George Bush’s America in the post-9/11 era and ended up vomiting demons in an evangelical church in Texas, riding the streets of Baghdad in an American convoy to nowhere, searching for phantom fighter jets in Congress, and falling into the rabbit hole of the 9/11 Truth Movement.
Matt discovered in his travels across the country that the resilient blue state/red state narrative of American politics had become irrelevant. A large and growing chunk of the American population was so turned off—or radicalized—by electoral chicanery, a spineless news media, and the increasingly blatant lies from our leaders (“they hate us for our freedom”) that they abandoned the political mainstream altogether. They joined what he calls The Great Derangement.
Taibbi tells the story of this new American madness by inserting himself into four defining American subcultures: The Military, where he finds himself mired in the grotesque black comedy of the American occupation of Iraq; The System, where he follows the money-slicked path of legislation in Congress; The Resistance, where he doubles as chief public antagonist and undercover member of the passionately bonkers 9/11 Truth Movement; and The Church, where he infiltrates a politically influential apocalyptic mega-ministry in Texas and enters the lives of its desperate congregants. Together these four interwoven adventures paint a portrait of a nation dangerously out of touch with reality and desperately searching for answers in all the wrong places.
Funny, smart, and a little bit heartbreaking, The Great Derangement is an audaciously reported, sobering, and illuminating portrait of America at the end of the Bush era.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11878 in Books
• Published on: 2008-05-06
• Released on: 2008-05-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

From Publishers Weekly
With his trademark mordant wit, journalist Taibbi explores the black comedy of the American polis, where a citizenry shunted out of the political process seeks solace in conspiratorial weirdness and Internet-fueled mysticism. Trained from birth to be excellent consumers, Americans have become experts in mixing and matching news items to fit [their] own self-created identities, according to the author, who embeds himself in these pockets of people as he travels to the Congress press gallery, Iraq, meetings of the 9/11 Truth Movement, and goes undercover at a Christian Retreat. He pillories born-again Christians and the 9/11 conspiracy theorists, concluding that despite their differences: Both groups were and are defined primarily by an unshakeable belief in the inhumanity of their enemies on the other side; the Christians seldom distinguished between Islamic terrorism and, say, Al Gore–style environmentalism, while the Truthers easily believed that reporters for the Washington Post, the president and the frontline operators of NORAD were equally capable of murdering masses of ordinary New York financial sector employees. Thoughtful Democrats, Republicans and independents will find common ground in this book that punctures pretense, hypocrisy and know-nothingness. (May 6)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
PRAISE FOR
THE GREAT DERANGEMENT

"Matt Taibbi is the best American journalism has to offer. As The Great Derangement shows, he has absolutely no fear in confronting the corruption that plagues our government and exploring rising desperation that plagues America. And somehow, he pulls it off while making us simultaneously weep in sorrow and laugh our asses off." –David Sirota, author of Hostile Takeover


“The Great Derangement is a scabrous, hilarious vivisection of our disintegrating nation. An unstinting reporter and sensational writer, Taibbi shines a light on the corruption, absurdities and idiot pieties of modern American politics. Beneath his cynical fury, though, are flashes of surprising compassion for the adrift, credulous souls who are taken in by it all.  I loved this book."
–Michelle Goldberg, New York Times bestselling author of Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism

“Where other mainstream news sources fail, Matt Taibbi madly embraces his role as an honest political observer/writer/citizen in a democracy. I would also like to take this opportunity to ask for Matt’s hand in marriage”.
–Janeane Garofalo

“With his trademark mordant wit, Taibbi explores the ‘black comedy’ of the American polis. . .thoughtful Democrats, Republicans, and independents will find common ground in this book that punctures pretense, hypocrisy, and know-nothingness.” —Publisher’s Weekly

“Taibbi is a powerful writer, and his righteous fury with the sickening mechanism of congressional corruption seethes on every page.” –Kirkus Reviews

“It's a fascinating and hilarious study, fueled by Taibbi's own brand of paranoia, reflecting a cruel light on an America gone wild.”–Los Angeles Times

 “A vicious, funny, heartbreaking tour of the American scene.” –The New York Observer

“Acidly funny… For readers who have themselves grown desperate, Taibbi’s renegade book is a bracing kind of salvation–the kind that will amuse and enrage at the same time.”  –Time Out

“Vibrant, rich and irreverent.  It's quotable, pointed, painful, funny and true. Thank God we have Matt Taibbi around.”  –Daily Kos

About the Author

MATT TAIBBI is a roving national reporter for Rolling Stone and a columnist for rollingstone.com. He's the author of Spanking the Donkey, a collection of his writings about the 2004 election. He lives in New York City.

Customer Reviews

Rolling Stone reporter spies on America's disaffected idiots
Taibbi commendably takes his journalist spotlight off the corrupt actors on Washington's center stage, and instead investigates the most disaffected ordinary Americans. But to do so he goes undercover, posing as a believer in far right-wing Christian-Zionism, or far-left 9/11 conspiracy theories. He basically plays Borat, inventing oddball past experiences to play his part, and letting the unsuspecting locals make fools of themselves for the camera. Later Taibbi gives his real opinions of what idiots they are, and asks what America is coming to.

Only slowly does Taibbi's basic compassion for these people rise to the fore. These are people, he reasons, both conservatives and liberals, who feel so conned by the political rip-off system that they can't tell who to trust. And maybe, Taibbi suspects, part of the con has been to get them to blame and hate each other.

Interesting
I really enjoyed this book. The author has a good sense of humor and his adventures are quite interesting. Probably not for you if you are sensitive about religion.

Most Excellent
This book was a complete eye-opener. Literally prying open the third eye. Must read for any remaining free-thinking Americans. Matt Taibbi is absolutely brilliant.