"From the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic comes an impassioned critique of America's retreat from reason. We live in a time when the very idea of objective truth is mocked and discounted by the occupants of the White House. Discredited conspiracy theories and ideologies have resurfaced, proven science is once more up for debate, and Russian propaganda floods our screens. The wisdom of the crowd has usurped research and expertise, and we are each left...

Analyzing trends in American disinformation and conspiracy, Rauch reaches back to the parallel eighteenth-century developments of liberal democracy and science to explain what he calls the "Constitution of Knowledge"--our social system for turning disagreement into truth. By explicating the Constitution of Knowledge and probing the war on reality, Rauch posits a defined understanding of truth and free inquiry, with discussion of how and why they should...

Lewis describes the ways in which he sees that "truth can be manipulated and distorted by governments, corporations, even [lone] individuals. He [posits that] truth is often distorted or diminished by delay: truth in time can save terrible erroneous choices. In part a history of communication in America, a cri de couer for the principles and practice of objective reporting, and a journey into several notably labyrinths of deception, [this book is...

"Fake news," wild conspiracy theories, misleading claims, doctored photos, lies peddled as facts, facts dismissed as lies-citizens of democracies increasingly inhabit a public sphere teeming with competing claims and counterclaims, with no institution possessing the authority to settle basic disputes in a definitive way. The problem may be novel in some of its details-including the role of political leaders, along with broadcast and digital media,...

"This book is about Chelsea Manning's leaking of government documents. Manning told the truth about war and a social order sustained by it. Her truth-telling also revealed the complicity of public and private in casting her - a non-gender-conforming individual - as an improper truth-teller. And Manning's truth-telling unsettled hierarchies of truth-telling that prop up a discriminatory and often oppressive social order. I read Manning not as an isolated...