Chris Hedges talking about his book America: The Farewell Tour on MSNBC. One of the undisputedly good things about modern scholarship is that women’s history is finally getting its due.... To see what your friends thought of this book. America The Farewell Tour (Audiobook CD) : Hedges, Chris : America is convulsed by an array of pathologies arisen from hopelessness, despair, and a functionless civil society. He dismisses other approaches as if they could never have any important effect. It alos becomes a nice exercise in exploring my own confirmation bias, because I find myself easily agreeing with him on some issues and fighting him on others, which makes me wonder about my own foundational though. » Hedges is an excellent and experienced journalist and bases his book on travels throughout the States, observing decaying factory towns, accelerating opioid use, vast gaps between the rich and the remainder of people, the use of prisoners to make money for corporations, and a highly disturbing acceptance of sadism, especially in pornography (a chapter I wish I hadn’t read). He grew up in rural Schoharie County, New York, southwest of Albany.He graduated in 1975 from the Loomis Chaffee School, a private boarding school in Windsor, Connecticut. Hedges sides with Rosa Luxemburg (assassinated in Germany in 1919) against Lenin. Now the author is pretty smart and the analysis is pretty witty. It's the contradictions that grate. Having spent significant time in the Balkans and other war zones, he began to recognize how hopelessness and fear can easily be manipulated by governments to create cults of personality and fragmented communities filled with distrust of each other. Good interview with Chris Hedges on this work: Throughout history, all great civilizations have ultimately decayed. This is a truly remarkable analysis of the current state of affairs, not just in the USA, but all over the world. Hundreds of millions of people have been severed by modernity from traditions, beliefs, and rituals, as well as communal structure”—cast aside by global capitalism as superfluous. The chapter Freedom analyzes the decline of what had been America’s promise to its own people and to the world. It’s hard to disagree that the country is in an irrevocable decline. Each chapter takes more out of you than its predecessor, it seems, as the open sores on the sordid underbelly of the nation are exposed via heartbreaking interviews with Americans whose lives have been ruined by opioid addiction, gambling, unemployment, the porn/human traffic 'industry', etc. In his new book, America: The Farewell Tour, he contends that the United States is in decline. It’s just not saying anything of real significance. There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Each chapter focuses on a different aspect of this breakdown in society. The disillusionment and anger that led to Trump’s election—a reaction to the corporate coup d’état and the poverty afflicting at least half of the country—have discredited American democracy.” The views of Chris Hedges reflect not only the experiences of a well-traveled journalist and war correspondent (who covered violence in Central America, Sudan, Palestine, East Germany, and Yugoslavia) but also his close reading of scholars such as Hannah Arendt and Pankaj Mishra. Each chapter is backed by dozens of citations (sometimes more than a hundred) of citations, while the bibliography includes more than 150 books—from Arendt, James Baldwin, and Zbigniew Brzezinski to Voltaire and Howard Zinn (but no government or other documents). Publisher's Summary. They did not want to lose their wealth and power. With The Who, Roger Daltrey, John Entwistle, Tim Gorman. No. He is a columnist for the left-leaning website TruthDig. The loss of mystique is crippling, making it hard to find pliant surrogates to administer the empire. Yes. As other reviewers have mentioned, this is not a happy, feel-good read. Each provides analysis of failing systems alongside tragic stories of those affected. Oh Chris, how can a I love you one minute then be rolling my eyes the next? Chris Hedges argues that neither political party is handling it properly. That’s not a knock against this book specifically but more against books of this type. Learn exactly what happened in this chapter, scene, or section of A Farewell to Arms and what it means. I'll always be interested in what CH has to say, I've read most of his books and War is A Force that Gives Us Meaning is a favourite book of mine but he has gotten more and more into"Old Testament" mode as he has gone along and this book is a good example of that. CH really is extraordinary at talking to people and bringing them to life. It’s Christmastime which means most people will turn to re-read old favourites or pick up something feel-good, escapist and/or seasonal. I'd skip to the final chapter, FREEDOM, unless you feel under-educated on any of the assorted miseries covered in the preceding chapters. A bit of a pastiche of stories representing the underbelly of America and, perhaps, human civilization as it exists today. Refresh and try again. America The Farewell Tour (Book) : Hedges, Chris : "Is America in a state of irrevocable decline? That is how the government created fifteen million jobs, Social Security, unemployment benefits, and public works projects. Even though it is Mr. Bad News delivering the sermon, his choir of voices throughout the chapter confirms his humanitarian message with their stories of faith, hope and love. Christopher Lynn Hedges was born in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, the son of Thelma Louise (née Prince) and the Rev. Is it one of those books that hashes and rehashes semi recent events and comes up with a witty analysis to show how smart the author is. Other authors have reached similar conclusions while pouring over statistics and writing op-eds in their ivory towers. A profound and provocative examination of America in crisis, where unemployment, deindustrialization, and a bitter hopelessness and malaise have resulted in an epidemic of diseases of despair - drug abuse, gambling, suicide, magical thinking, xenophobia, and a culture of sadism and hate. Stories about his tour circulated back to Europe and portrayed America as a thriving and growing nation. Should it have been that close? History Catches Up To America and It’s Not Pretty. by Simon Schuster. I disagree with him and agree with him in about equal parts. But keep in mind that I am in favor of any solutions that create a more egalitarian society based on justice and compassion and empathy. A book that may change the way you look at porn! This is a lazy postion at best, it's the old communist notion (Steve Bannon would approve) that it's better to let the world burn down so as to hasten the end of the old corrupt order and bring about the glorious true age of socialism where everybody is suddenly much nicer to everyone else etc. I'll always be interested in what CH has to say, I've read most of his books and War is A Force that Gives Us Meaning is a favourite book of mine but he has gotten more and more into"Old Testament" mode as he has gone along and this book is a good example of that. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. Chris Hedges offers us a light-hearted, nostalgic romp through the absurdity and humor of the last days of the American Empire. The rage of those who feel abandoned is expressed in nativism, neofascism, jihadism, the Christian right, alt-right militias, and violent anarchism. But the old tricks of the CIA no longer work. He also castigates "corporate democrats" for blaming Russian interference on their election loss. The author writes very well. The chapter on Sadism begins with interviews of prostitutes about the dehumanizing nature of their work. Depressing because it paints what I believe to be a sadly realistic portrait of the United States at the present time and because Hedges holds Trump to be a symptom, not a cause. He is at his best when he is out talking to ordinary people as the superb journalist and writer that he is, the stories about the opiod deaths and the responsi. One minute he's telling off Antifa for their extremism and lack of civility but finishes the book with an extreme call to action to defeat evil that wouldn't be out of place in the Lord of the Rings. Only in 1921 did Lenin back off from doctrine when, confronted with starvation and chaos (not the “life force of Russian Revolution”), he approved a New Economic Policy permitting some private trade.This kind of distortion—not a black on white falsehood—should lead readers to take other sweeping statements with more than one grain of salt. Although this author graduated from the Harvard Divinity School, he was not ordained a Presbyterian minister until 2014. He’s also extremely well read in political history and philosophy. He dismisses other approaches as if they could never have any important effect. He is the author of more than 20 books, most recently The Republican Virus in the Body Politic: How to Reboot America. Hedges always makes me think and forces me to challenge certain preconceptions. But for Hedges it doesn't matter any way because to him Clinton is no better than Trump. NOT. In America: The Farewell Tour, Hedges argues that neither political party, now captured by corporate power, addresses the systemic problem. Hedges (published here and promoted by one of the largest U.S. publishers) writes that corporate capitalism cannot be reformed. But “the malaise that infects America is global. Chris Hedges is a professor, social critic, ordained Presbyterian minister, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, and a socialist. 20 New Books on Women’s History. A summary of Part X (Section1) in Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms. If, however, you want a book that will deliver the cold, hard facts about the state of America today and its likely future, this is the book for you. I wonder if we are focusing on the right things at this point, do we need now to write about ways that will help solve this, even at this degree of toxic humanity and despair? That Henry, an officer, helps the man to avoid the fighting shows that Henry feels very little loyalty to the general war effort or the Italian army. No. The capitalists did not do this because the suffering of the masses moved them to pity. And what he uncovers is extremely disturbing. Simon & Schuster. In the first chapter, “Decay,” we read about the structural reasons for collapses of prominent cultures in eras before ours. Hedges uses the election of Trump as an obvious jumping off point for a detailed examination of what has gone so wrong in the last 60 years, but his chilling argument is that Trump is not the cause of American woes, he's just their latest and most obvious symptom. And then there are people like me who couldn’t care less about the holidays and just want to read something gripping and brilliant yet so bleak that by the end you’ll be playing Russian roulette while your family breaks out the Monopoly. 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