The Big Myth

At last, an antidote to the toxic fiction that now imperils our planet and our democracy. For decades, self-interested businessmen have promoted the canard that any government effort to make markets work more safely and fairly will cost us our freedom. Not true, show Oreskes and Conway as they boldly exhume the buried truth: that what's really at stake is the form of capitalism we choose. If you read only one book this year, make it The Big Myth. * Nancy MacLean, author of Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America * Both a carefully researched work of intellectual history, and an urgently needed political analysis explaining how Americans have become so deeply alienated from their own government. In a compelling narrative, the authors show how a small but zealous cadre of conservative businessmen, many of them selling harmful products, waged and largely won an undeclared ideological war for Americans' hearts and minds. The magical thinking they promoted has profited them handsomely, but cost the rest of the country tragically. * Jane Mayer, author of Dark Money * Admirers of the authors' Merchants of Doubt will find the same trenchant investigative brilliance here, deployed on an even wider canvas. They show how wealthy industrialists praising free enterprise shamelessly put vast sums of money into manipulating the free market of ideas. The target: well over a century's worth of progressive movements from child labor regulation to the New Deal to the fight for renewable energy. * Adam Hochschild, author of AMERICAN MIDNIGHT * A detailed, carefully researched study of how the ideology of market fundamentalism was sold to the American public. An invaluable expose of how a certain kind of magical thinking was turned into accepted wisdom. * Amitav Ghosh, author of THE GREAT DERANGEMENT * In this major work, Oreskes and Conway expose how American democracy was deformed by decades of 'free market' ideology. They reveal how big business interests attacked the very guardrails that make markets safe and fair and flogged the self-serving notion that popular democracy is dangerous to 'freedom.' Worst of all, American business successfully persuaded many of us that we should trust corporations more than our own government. * Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), co-author of THE SCHEME * A sweeping, eye-opening account of how the myth of the free market seeped into American political culture. Looking back at the history of the organizations and individuals who attempted to erase the reality of our mixed public-private system, The Big Myth busts the myth of market fundamentalism that has weakened our ability to tackle major policy challenges. * Julian Zelizer, CNN contributor, and author of BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE * A wonderful book. It is St. George slaying the dragon. The Big Myth can free American minds from a dangerous enthrallment. * James Gustave Speth, former dean, Yale School of the Environment, and author of AMERICA THE POSSIBLE * Market fundamentalism has been profoundly damaging to human and economic welfare, in terms of ill health, environmental harms, inequality, and more. How did this belief system become so prominent in ideas and politics, particularly in the USA? This fascinating and important book tells that extraordinary story with care and rigor, setting out the cast of characters, their motivations, and the modus operandi. Please read this book. And be warned. * Lord Nicholas Stern, former Chief Economist of the World Bank * Anyone concerned about the state of democracy in America should read this book. -- Al Gore on MERCHANTS OF DOUBT Merchants of Doubt should finally put to rest the question of whether the science of climate change is settled. It is, and we ignore this message at our peril. -- Elizabeth Kolbert on MERCHANTS OF DOUBT