Twilight of American Sanity
A Psychiatrist Analyzes the Age of Trump
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3.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
“Unravel[s] the national psyche that brought our politics to this moment.” — Evan Osnos, The New Yorker
A landmark book, from “one of the world’s most prominent psychiatrists” (The Atlantic): Allen Frances analyzes the nation, viewing the rise of Donald J. Trump as darkly symptomatic of a deeper societal distress that must be understood if we are to move forward. Equally challenging and profound, Twilight of American Sanity “joins a small shelf of essential titles—Arlie Hochschild’s Strangers in Their Own Land is another—that help explain why and how the Trump presidency happened” (Kirkus).
It is comforting to see President Donald Trump as a crazy man, a one-off, an exception—not a reflection on us or our democracy. But in ways I never anticipated, his rise was absolutely predictable and a mirror on our soul. … What does it say about us, that we elected someone so manifestly unfit and unprepared to determine mankind’s future? Trump is a symptom of a world in distress, not its sole cause. Blaming him for all our troubles misses the deeper, underlying societal sickness that made possible his unlikely ascent. Calling Trump crazy allows us to avoid confronting the craziness in our society—if we want to get sane, we must first gain insight about ourselves. Simply put: Trump isn’t crazy, but our society is. —from TWILIGHT OF AMERICAN SANITY
More than three years in the making: the world's leading expert on psychiatric diagnosis, past leader of the American Psychiatric Association’s DSM (“the bible of psychology”), and author of the influential international bestseller on the medicalization of ordinary life, Saving Normal, draws upon his vast experience to deliver a powerful critique of modern American society’s collective slide away from sanity and offers an urgently needed prescription for reclaiming our bearings. Widely cited in recent months as the man who quite literally wrote the diagnostic criteria for narcissism, Allen Frances, M.D., has been at the center of the debate surrounding President Trump’s mental state—quoted in Evan Osnos’s May 2017 New Yorker article (“How Trump Could Get Fired”) and publishing a much-shared opinion letter in the New York Times (“An Eminent Psychiatrist Demurs on Trump’s Mental State”). Frances argues that Trump is "bad, not mad"--and that the real question to wrestle with is how we as a country could have chosen him as our leader. Twilight of American Sanity is an essential work for understanding our national crisis.
Customer Reviews
Regret Buying It
People on the political right may be too dismissive of this book to bother hating it. Ideologues on the left will probably love it. For those who lean left but value reason as much as ideology, feelings about the book may be more complicated. I found myself sympathetic to the author's motivations and goals but regretting having spent the money to buy the book.
The first half of the book is far too much rant with too little reasoned discussion. The second half is a recitation of the ways in which people are destroying the world. The list was reasonable, but few insights were offered as to how to fix things.
The book also seems disjointed. My guess is that it was initially meant to be about "societal delusions" (a favorite phrase of the author's) with minimal political content. Then Trump appeared on the political scene and the temptation to include him was too much for the author to pass-up. The end result feels like two books forced into one. I'm guessing that the use of a subtitle to reference Trump is a nod to this late-stage addition of Trumpian content. Whatever the reason, the book reads like two books crammed into one.
Another issue is the author's willingness to use tactics when arguing his own case that he despises when used by the political right. At one point he seems to 'feel guilty' about doing this and overtly invokes the "necessary to fight fire with fire" idiom. My preference would have been that he adopt the "when they go low, I'll go high" approach.
The audio presentation of the book is well performed but this alone can't overcome the book's fundamental weaknesses. Whether a specific individual will enjoy "Twilight of American Sanity" probably has a high correlation with their political world-view.