The Devil’s Pleasure Palace

The Cult of Critical Theory and the Subversion of the West

By: Michael Walsh

Narrated by: Michael Walsh

In the aftermath of World War II, America stood alone as the world's premier military power. Yet its martial confidence contrasted vividly with its sense of cultural inferiority. Still looking to a defeated and dispirited Europe for intellectual and artistic guidance, burgeoning transnational elite in New York and Washington embraced not only the war's refugees but many of their ideas as well, and nothing has proven more pernicious than those of the Frankfurt School and its reactionary philosophy of "critical theory". At once overly intellectualized and emotionally juvenile, critical theory - like Pandora's box - released a horde of demons into the American psyche. When everything could be questioned, nothing could be real, and the muscular, confident empiricism that had just won the war gave way, in less than a generation, to a Central European nihilism celebrated on college campuses across the United States. In The Devil's Pleasure Palace, Michael Walsh looks at how critical theory took root in America and came to affect nearly every aspect of American life and society - and what can be done to stop it.

©2015 Michael Walsh (P)2015 Tantor

Excellent, provocative and informative.

I was hoping to find a book like this that took an art critics approach to critical theory and it’s dogma giving us a primer for dismantling it. Excellent read with plenty of references that just added to my reading list.

Wordy, but worthy

It was a book that one can get lost in the weeds as it jumps around from everything from Milton, to movies, to opera, and everything in-between. However, the content is more relevant than ever and the overall themes and message is very good.

Should be read by everyone!

This would have 5 stars if it weren't for the knee-jerk reaction of trolls who rate it low without reading it simply because it doesn't appear to align with their worldview. It's tough to argue with the facts and history presented here--no, it's impossible--because they're facts. If you are at all interested in how America got itself into such a cultural quagmire--read this. But only if you're willing to see just how far down the rabbit hole goes!

Great book on why the left always want to destroy

Think of the weird relationship between Islam and the political left. Ever wonder why? This book takes you to the root of the problem.

good prose with narration by author.

author fails to delve, but by way of offhand references, into the Jewish question. also be prepared for a lot of classical especially Christian citations and allusions. author also forgoes chronological or linear systematic descriptions of the various Frankfurt intellectuals, in contradistinction to e.g. <<intellectuals>> by p. Johnson, in favor of a more freeform essay-like approach, which actually works better in this case.