Evil Geniuses

The Unmaking of America: A Recent History

By: Kurt Andersen

Narrated by: Kurt Andersen

Length: 16 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's summary

New York Times best seller

When did America give up on fairness? The author of Fantasyland tells the epic history of how America decided that big business gets whatever it wants, only the rich get richer, and nothing should ever change - and charts a way back to the future.

“Essential, absorbing...a graceful, authoritative guide...a radicalized moderate’s moderate case for radical change.” (The New York Times Book Review)

During the 20th century, America managed to make its economic and social systems both more and more fair and more and more prosperous. A huge, secure, and contented middle class emerged. All boats rose together. But then the New Deal gave way to the Raw Deal. Beginning in the early 1970s, by means of a long war conceived of and executed by a confederacy of big business CEOs, the superrich, and right-wing zealots, the rules and norms that made the American middle class possible were undermined and dismantled. The clock was turned back on a century of economic progress, making greed good, workers powerless, and the market all-powerful while weaponizing nostalgia, lifting up an oligarchy that served only its own interests, and leaving the huge majority of Americans with dwindling economic prospects and hope.

Why and how did America take such a wrong turn? In this deeply researched and brilliantly woven cultural, economic, and political chronicle, Kurt Andersen offers a fresh, provocative, and eye-opening history of America's undoing, naming names, showing receipts, and unsparingly assigning blame - to the radical right in economics and the law, the high priests of high finance, a complacent and complicit Establishment, and liberal "useful idiots", among whom he includes himself.

Only a writer with Andersen's crackling energy, deep insight, and ability to connect disparate dots and see complex systems with clarity could make such a book both intellectually formidable and vastly entertaining. And only a writer of Andersen’s vision could reckon with our current high-stakes inflection point and show the way out of this man-made disaster.

©2020 Kurt Andersen (P)2020 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“This is the one book everyone must read as we figure out how to rebuild our country. With lucid writing and head-snapping insights, Kurt Andersen explores how a confederacy of the right and big business, with unabashed greed, deliberately reengineered our economy. To fix that will require understanding the roots of the problem. A triumph.”—Walter Isaacson, author of The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race

“Nostalgia is the antithesis of history. Andersen brilliantly exposes how nostalgia—the strategic oversimplification of our past—has erased complexity and friction from our country’s narrative to serve a single goal: to preserve the status quo for the benefit of those in power. Evil Geniuses documents how history and nostalgia are engaged in hand-to-hand combat that may determine our future.”—Ken Burns, director of The Civil War and The Roosevelts: An Intimate History

“How did the United States turn from its longstanding egalitarian ideals to its present course of socially and morally catastrophic inequality? Kurt Andersen interrogates the past half century with characteristic intellectual ambition and literary bravado to find out. At once cultural history, memoir, and riff, Evil Geniuses explains how our country found its way into this predicament, and how we might yet get out of it.”—Jacob Weisberg, author of The Bush Tragedy and Ronald Reagan

comprehensive

loved it. eye opening and distressing. we have a lot of work ahead of us. might move to Finland or Denmark.

How conservatives and big business conned us.

Anderson lays out in fascinating detail all of the steps in the rise of modern "conservative," small govt America. It's a chilling narrative that connects the dots and shows how, little by little, conservatives and corporatists flushed a half century of post-New Deal prosperity down the toilet for all but the upper echelons of our society.

A history reminder all Americans need to read

Memories are short, things easily forgotten and much much more hidden from view of the public.

Everyone should listen to Kurt Andersen

There are only a few Good Geniuses like Kurt Andersen around. Not only does he have enormous academic and intellectual credibility, he has the street cred to go with it. Don't be scared... he's from the Midwest. Lots of quotations, research, and statistics to back him up. This book will make clear that most Americans are on the same page; whereas our government has become a tool of big business (the Evil Geniuses). Very well written too, and quite entertaining. Kurt Andersen for presidential advisor!

Great book, both in hardcover and audible versions

This very persuasively written book (I am a Kurt Andersen fan) was a good listen. It lags a bit, but chapter 19 and onward are very good places to restart thus audible book.

Very comprehensive and thorough. Well written.

I listened to the audio version and was captivated thru out.
In depth yet plain and easy to understand. Right on the money.

Beautifully written, organized, referenced and read

I had known about many events mentioned in this book before reading “Evil Geniuses” but Anderson puts them together in a way that made me rethink this 40 period of American political history. He clearly demonstrates how Milton Friedman’s economic teachings undercut the social contract between Americans that developed during the New Deal and post war eras and why so many of us today have lost faith in government. The book and narration are as good as it gets.

Economic truths & The reason for change

Finely somebody wrote about the economic truths that I've been living my whole life. America is in need of change 2020 Is the year for Americans to wake up and change their conditions.

great up to date in 2021 book about GOP long game

well written although certainly thru biased eyes book on the long run up to how we got here. brilliant!

Enjoyed the journey!

I am always enlightened by Mr. Andersen’s take on larger cultural, economic and social issues. Seeing how we got to now further cemented his legacy as a true American Thinker!