Cheaters Always Win
The Story of America
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
A social history of cheating and how American history -- through real estate, sports, finance, academics, and of course politics -- has had its unfair share of rigged results and widened the margins on its gray areas.
Drawing from the intriguing (and sometimes unbelievable) true stories of the lives of everyday Americans, historian Julie M. Fenster traces the history of the weakening of our national ethics through the practice of cheating. From marital infidelity to financial fraud; rigged sports competitions to corruption in politics and the American education system; nuclear weaponry to beauty pageants; hospitals, TV gameshows, and charities; nothing and no one is exempt.
And far from being ostracized, cheaters in every sphere continue to survive and even thrive, casting their influence over the rest of our society. And nowhere is this more obvious than in the recent tectonic shift in politics, where a revolution in our collective attitude toward fraudsters has ushered in a new kind of leadership.
Part history of an all-American tradition, part dissection of an ongoing national crisis, Cheaters Always Win is irresistible reading -- a smart, sardonic, and scintillating look into the practice that made America what it is today.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this acerbic survey of American culture, historian Fenster (Jefferson's America) examines how and why people cheat, and whether or not cheating is part of the national character. Fenster relates stories of fraud, deception, and rule breaking in sports (caddies in 1920s Chicago who demanded payment in order to keep golfers' true scores secret), entertainment (the quiz show scandals of the 1950s), and law (a New Jersey man who went to the district attorney when the fake law license he bought for $1,000 never showed up). She investigates whether or not it's true that everybody cheats (it's not); examines various responses to being cheated, including seeking revenge and staying silent ("all are apt to fail"); and provides a quiz to determine the likelihood that a partner who's had an affair will do so again. According to Fenster, American society has stopped believing that "nothing is more important than integrity"; as a result, she writes, "never has cheating been so blithely accepted by the non-cheater and never has it been granted as a privilege of leadership, as it is today." Fenster's sarcasm gives the book a somewhat peevish tone, but her moral outrage is genuine. Readers who've noticed a downward trend in American virtue since the 1960s will relate.
