Profiles in Ignorance

How America's Politicians Got Dumb and Dumber

Andy Borowitz

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Hardback

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English

Simon & Schuster
14 December 2022

History; Political science & theory; Political leaders & leadership

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
* WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER
*WASHINGTON POST BESTSELLER
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Andy Borowitz, “one of the funniest people in America” (CBS Sunday Morning), brilliantly “chronicles our embrace of anti-intellectualism” (Walter Isaacson) in American politics, from Ronald Reagan to Dan Quayle, from George W. Bush to Sarah Palin, to its apotheosis in Donald J. Trump.

Andy Borowitz has been called a “Swiftian satirist” (The Wall Street Journal) and “one of the country’s finest satirists” (The New York Times). Millions of fans and New Yorker readers enjoy his satirical news column “The Borowitz Report.” Now, in Profiles in Ignorance, he delivers “a wittily alarming polemic that tracks the evolution of American politics from grounds for gravitas to festival of idiocy” (The New York Times).

Borowitz argues that over the past fifty years, American politicians have grown increasingly allergic to knowledge, and mass media have encouraged the election of ignoramuses by elevating candidates who are better at performing than thinking. Starting with Ronald Reagan’s first campaign for governor of California in 1966 and culminating with the election of Donald J. Trump to the White House, Borowitz shows how, during the age of twenty-four-hour news and social media, the US has elected politicians to positions of great power whose lack of the most basic information is terrifying. In addition to Reagan, Quayle, Bush, Palin, and Trump, Borowitz covers a host of congresspersons, senators, and governors who have helped lower the bar over the past five decades.

Profiles in Ignorance aims to make us both laugh and cry: laugh at the idiotic antics of these public figures, and cry at the cataclysms these icons of ignorance have caused. But most importantly, the book delivers a call to action and a cause for optimism: History doesn’t move in a straight line, and we can change course if we act now.

By: Andy Borowitz
Imprint: Simon & Schuster
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 213mm, Width: 140mm, Spine: 25mm
Weight: 420g
ISBN: 9781668003886
ISBN 10: 1668003880
Pages: 320
Publication Date: 14 December 2022
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Andy Borowitz is an award-winning comedian and New York Times bestselling author. He grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and graduated from Harvard College, where he became President of the Harvard Lampoon. In 1998, he began contributing humor to The New Yorker's Shouts & Murmurs and Talk of the Town departments, and in 2001, he created The Borowitz Report, a satirical news column, which has millions of readers around the world. In 2012, The New Yorker began publishing The Borowitz Report. As a storyteller, he hosted Stories at the Moth from 1999 to 2009. As a comedian, he has played to sold-out venues around the world, including during his national tour, Make America Not Embarrassing Again, from 2018 to 2020. He is the first-ever winner of the National Press Club's humor award. He lives with his family in New Hampshire.

Reviews for Profiles in Ignorance: How America's Politicians Got Dumb and Dumber

How did we slide into the abyss of liking our politicians to be-or to act-dumb rather than smart? In this funny but serious book, Andy Borowitz chronicles our embrace of anti-intellectualism. -Walter Isaacson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Code Breaker This is one of these brilliant books that makes you laugh until you cry. Borowitz masterfully throws light (and shade) on the confederacy of dunces who have fumbled their way into power. His writing has never been smarter, sharper, or more necessary. -Susan Orlean, New York Times bestselling author of The Library Book A devastatingly funny takedown of a veritable Mount Rushmore of incompetents . . . In the hallowed tradition of Will Rogers, Mark Twain, H.L. Mencken, Ambrose Bierce, and other clear-eyed satirists, Borowitz skewers all manner of chronically befuddled, willfully ignorant dolts. . . . Ravaging this seemingly endless rogues' gallery of buffoonery and corruption, Borowitz marshals mind-boggling, breathtaking evidence. . . . While there are countless laughs in the book, they have a rueful edge given that we are all affected by such widespread ignorance. -Kirkus Reviews (starred) [Borowitz] sheds light on the cultural and economic trends that gave intellectualism a bad name and identifies the political operatives . . . who facilitated the rise of ignorance. Fans of The Borowitz Report will gobble this up. -Publishers Weekly