The Chapo Guide to Revolution
A Manifesto Against Logic, Facts, and Reason
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
Instant New York Times bestseller
“Howard Zinn on acid or some bullsh*t like that.” —Tim Heidecker
The creators of the cult-hit podcast Chapo Trap House deliver a manifesto for everyone who feels orphaned and alienated—politically, culturally, and economically—by the lanyard-wearing Wall Street centrism of the left and the lizard-brained atavism of the right: there is a better way, the Chapo Way.
In a guide that reads like “a weirder, smarter, and deliciously meaner version of The Daily Show’s 2004 America (The Book)” (Paste), Chapo Trap House shows you that you don’t have to side with either sinking ships. These self-described “a******s from the internet” offer a fully ironic ideology for all who feel politically hopeless and prefer broadsides and tirades to reasoned debate.
Learn the “secret” history of the world, politics, media, and everything in-between that THEY don’t want you to know and chart a course from our wretched present to a utopian future where one can post in the morning, game in the afternoon, and podcast after dinner without ever becoming a poster, gamer, or podcaster.
A book that’s “as intellectually serious and analytically original as it is irreverent and funny” (Glenn Greenwald, New York Times bestselling author of No Place to Hide) The Chapo Guide to Revolution features illustrated taxonomies of contemporary liberal and conservative characters, biographies of important thought leaders, “never before seen” drafts of Aaron Sorkin’s Newsroom manga, and the ten new laws that govern Chapo Year Zero (everyone gets a dog, billionaires are turned into Soylent, and logic is outlawed). If you’re a fan of sacred cows, prisoners being taken, and holds being barred, then this book is NOT for you. However, if you feel disenfranchised from the political and cultural nightmare we’re in, then Chapo, let’s go…
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The hosts of the leftist comedy podcast Chapo Trap House bring their caustic brand of satire to the page. The book is largely a fast-paced comic retelling of American political history that opens with a "hasty and tossed-off" overview of modern geopolitics, studded with jokes (the "most popular professions" in contemporary France, the authors explain, are "racist cartoonist, cigarette tester, blackface makeup technician") and explainer boxes ("Empires: Where Are They Now?"). From there, the authors dispense scathing critiques of "Well-Meaning Liberals" and "Knuckle-Dragging Conservatives"; the American news media; Western cultural artifacts (including The West Wing, obsessive fans of which receive an insightful critique); and the drudgery, anxiety, and alienation of work. Fans will recognize and newcomers be apprised of preferences for Thyssenkrupp elevators and against "prestige television." The deadpan delivery mixing puns, rampant sarcasm, inside jokes, references to professional wrestling, and sincere exhortations to pursue reform is textbook Chapo. The Chapo crew can be polarizing, and the style here risks exhausting even loyal "Gray Wolves" (as fans are known, in an ironic nod to Turkish nationalists), but they succeed in advocating "a good-humored, thick-skinned, and maybe even optimistic struggle against the world outside" to readers disillusioned with mainstream politics. Illus.)
