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

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

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.

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!

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.

Sweeping analysis of academic and cultural decay

Walsh has done an important service to the Western world through this wide-ranging work. Surveying the influence of the Frankfurt school on Western culture through academia, politics, literature, and music, one sees a deep, multi-generational movement aimed at nothing less than the overthrow of liberty and virtue. In some ways, Walsh didn't tell me anything I didn't know - at least in pieces. But he puts everything together by connecting it to the "unholy left's" obsession with Eros and Thanatos.

If you've gotten to the point of reading reviews on this book, stop what you're doing and get it. It will easily be the most significant book you'll read this year.

Very well done

An essential read for everyone in Western culture. This book clearly leads one to question the origins and implications of the social justice movement, and provides an extremely well developed examination of its birth from nihilism and dialectical materialism. I would recommend this book to anyone seeking an intellectual and rational approach to the subject, as opposed to an emotional one.

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.

A technical read, rich in history!!

I cannot recommend this book enough! rich in history, and eye opening. Prepare to think!

America in cold civil war

This book gave a deep analysis on the true nature of the ‘progressives’. It pointed out, in 2015, America is in cold civil war, fighting on the ideas this time.

A MUST READ

Michael Walsh's DPP is one of the most insightful books of our generation. To truly understand the Left's playbook and the nature of the political battlefield, DPP is an absolute prerequisite.