Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

Front Cover
Penguin, Dec 27, 2005 - Social Science - 208 pages
What happens when media and politics become forms of entertainment? As our world begins to look more and more like Orwell's 1984, Neil's Postman's essential guide to the modern media is more relevant than ever.

"It's unlikely that Trump has ever read Amusing Ourselves to Death, but his ascent would not have surprised Postman.” -CNN

Originally published in 1985, Neil Postman’s groundbreaking polemic about the corrosive effects of television on our politics and public discourse has been hailed as a twenty-first-century book published in the twentieth century. Now, with television joined by more sophisticated electronic media—from the Internet to cell phones to DVDs—it has taken on even greater significance. Amusing Ourselves to Death is a prophetic look at what happens when politics, journalism, education, and even religion become subject to the demands of  entertainment. It is also a blueprint for regaining control of our media, so that they can serve our highest goals.

“A brilliant, powerful, and important book. This is an indictment that Postman has laid down and, so far as I can see, an irrefutable one.” –Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post Book World

From inside the book

Contents

The Medium Is the Metaphor
3
Media as Epistemology
16
Typographic America
30
The Typographic Mind
44
The PeekaBoo World
64
The Age of Show Business
83
Now This
99
Shuffle Off to Bethlehem
114
Reach Out and Elect Someone
125
Teaching as an Amusing Activity
142
The Huxleyan Warning
155
Notes
165
Bibliography
173
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2005)

Neil Postman (1931–2003) was chairman of the Department of Communication Arts at New York University and founder of its Media Ecology program. He wrote more than twenty books.

Bibliographic information