• The Devil’s Pleasure Palace

  • The Cult of Critical Theory and the Subversion of the West
  • By: Michael Walsh
  • Narrated by: Michael Walsh
  • Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (285 ratings)

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The Devil’s Pleasure Palace

By: Michael Walsh
Narrated by: Michael Walsh
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Publisher's summary

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

What listeners say about The Devil’s Pleasure Palace

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I tried but I finally couldn't take it anymore

What disappointed you about The Devil’s Pleasure Palace?

Although I share most of Mr Walsh's attitudes and am in fact even more to the Right than he, this book desperately needed an editor. Meandering and crossing back over the same turf, without any organizing principle I could find --except self-indulgently showing off his knowledge of German opera in German-- this repetitive and labyrinthine ramble frustrated me so much that I gave up by Chapter 10.

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31 people found this helpful

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Magnificent

Walsh provides a devastating critique of critical theory in an interesting and intellectually robust fashion. Even those who embrace such notions should at least listen to this audio presentation.
Woven throughout are references to the foundational stories of Western civilization. It's more than just a dry diatribe against distant philosophical hair-splitting.

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18 people found this helpful

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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.

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13 people found this helpful

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The Most Intelligent Book You'll Hear This Year

Brilliant! The writing, history, and artistic structure are masterful; the thesis is spot on; and the performance is pitch perfect. Mr. Walsh has written a robust defense of Western Culture and supported it with art, music, history, and philosophy. Structuring the defense around Faust is masterful in itself and the performance just rounds out that mastery. Having thus far listened just once, but planning to begin a second listen on tomorrow's morning commute, I can only imagine this will be one of those staples one returns to; like The Lessons of History, A Christmas Carol, Good Omens, or The Everlasting Man. Thank you, Mr. Walsh, for gloriously defending our culture and being willing to identify the logical, nihilistic end of today's post-modern cynicism that masquerades as culture... (from an admitted Kahaniac).

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11 people found this helpful

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Profound!!

Best Book I've Read All Year! If your worried for the world there is an answer when you know your enemy...

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Christian evangelism and anti-academic

Rather than focus on the Frankfurt School's history and ideology this author immediately begins producing his own Christian ideological narrative with genesis used as history.
If you aren't devoutly Christian don't waste your time. Not history.

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7 people found this helpful

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An Important Book

At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, this instant classic is a touchstone for conservatives wandering in the wilderness of progressive leftism. Culture, as one would have it, is both the Achilles heel and the salvation of those that would endeavor to overcome the Satanic will that is poison perpetrated by the Frankfurt school on a naive and welcoming people, the Americans.

Michael Walsh weaves classic literature and thought into an illumination that lights a path to salvation, destroying the feeble logic foisted on the weak by Critical Theorists and Communists.

The current forces of evil may not yet have played their last hand, but fear not, read (or listen) to this volume and take solace in the fact that there is no synthesis with evil as long as a candle burns in the darkness.

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I wanted to like it... but it fails completely

Any book on the Frankfurt School needs to stick close to the facts. The author here spends 60% of his time morally grandstanding on the top of dead writers. What does Wagner have to do with the subject at hand? Apparently nothing but boosting the author's ego and undermining the the legitimacy of the subject in the process.

After reading this book, I can't tell you who the members of the school were, what they were each about, when it was founded, or what factors motivated them. What do I know? The author thinks they're evil. You'll just have to take his word for it.

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5 people found this helpful

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No one should begin high school or college without reading this book

Michael Walsh walks you through the the purposeful system breakdown of our culture by anti western leftists. He describes in detail how they've captured the attentions and passions of the youth and turned reality on its head by redefining terms. A must read not once but every year.

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Awesome Book!

This is an important book for any conservative to read. If you read the Andrew Breitbart book, this book goes many levels deeper into the Democrat Media Complex and the Origins of the modern American liberal.

The adversary is a whiner, devoid of courage, totally self absorbed, and evil. They exist because we choose to allow them to influence our minds via political correctness.

The author likes his opera and classical literature, fortunately for me, I do to. Don't be intimidated by this, as other raters of the book seem a bit put-off. He also talks about movies, so relax.

Andrew Breitbart was a happy warrior, Walsh is more hardcore. You want to know his story.

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5 people found this helpful