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Summary: What should Americans be afraid of then?
Review: Apparently this author thinks Americans are afraid of the wrong things. I'm going by the book's subtitle, since I haven't read the book - I probably won't have time to read it either, especially since it's not the sort of thing I tend to read. On this occasion I can't be bothered reading any of the reader reviews either. Well, if the author believes that Americans are afraid of the wrong things, what does he think Americans should be afraid of? Surely it's not enough to just leave it at that - the author shouldn't just be focussing on the negative without providing some alternatives. This is a common problem with our society nowadays - people complaining about the way things are without suggesting alternatives.
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Summary: The replacement of an Agenda
Review: Very simple. This is a good book, but the author ruins it by replacing his own anti-gun agenda with the media. Is true we worry about the wrong things, but this man shouldn't have the right to tell us what to be afraid of any more than other entities. Glassner doesn't want to eliminate the ability of the mass media or ideologues to tell us how to think, he just wants their job....
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Summary: America - you are a great nation, so don't be afraid!
Review: One of the reasons that 9/11 happened is that terrorists all over the world thought that the USA was too frightened to retaliate in strength. They now know differently of course! But books like this show that the USA, the mightiest nation on earth, is still too scared of too many things - and quite needlessly! You CAN go on that vacation in California, England, wherever - you won't die! Most people still love the USA! Keep living, America! The rest of the world needs you, as this book makes clear. Christopher Catherwood, author of CHRISTIANS, MUSLIMS AND ISLAMIC RAGE (Zondervan, 2003)
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Summary: A true eye opener!
Review: This book will change the way you watch the news.Like many others, I saw the author interviewed in Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine", amd went out and bought "Culture of Fear." As a news junkie, this was an astonishing read. For years I've felt a growing sense of nervousness, manifested by the restrictions I put on my children. After reading Glassner's book I am much more aware of the print and other media's scare tactics. Using abundant examples, Mr. Glassner examines the headlines, separates the truth from fiction, and makes it clear why we are afraid of the wrong things. This book will help you avoid being mislead by the media, and change the way you look at news coverage. Can't ask for much more than that from a book, can you?
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Summary: Excellent Expose on America's Fears
Review: I learned of this book through Bowling for Columbine. The portion of the film with Barry Glassner was extremely interesting, and this book lived up to my expectations. Glassner covers an array of public fears, from the absurd (candy tampering) to the prevalent (black males, drugs, commercial flights). Culling from an extensive base of well-researched facts, Glassner provides a context for understanding the continuing trend of why Americans fears are often misdirected. Published in 1999, I couldn't help but thinking how Glassner would examine post 9-11 fears, especially in the context of profiling. That said, much of the book is easily applicable to a post 9-11 society, which makes it all the more interesting.
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Summary: Taking comfort in statistics
Review: Sociologist Glassner indicts the media on several counts of fear-mongering, and claims that misappropriated fear causes both undue trauma over the feared issue and starves away concern over the real problems. First, he argues, we are afraid of things that are mostly harmless. Road rage, delinquent kids, single moms, black men, hard drugs, strange illnesses seemingly from breast implants and desert wars, plane crashes, and Martians invading New Jersey ("The War of the Worlds"); all these are of little danger to most anyone. These fears often follow general rules that we can use to ferret them out (page 206-8), but regardless, they inspire worry in many people. The danger of fearing too much, Glassner argues, is that it "knocks the optimism out of us by stuffing us full of negative presumptions about our fellow citizens and social institutions" (page 208). This makes us believe that we cannot solve our real problems, which adds even more to our fear in a self-perpetuating cycle. Second, and worse, fearing the harmless keeps us from seeing and solving the real problems that plague our society. Often the hyped-up fears are successful, in fact, because they are a stopgap solution, giving us a smaller battle to fight while we ignore the greater war because it has gotten "too big". Glassner puts it this way: "The success of a scare depends not only on how well it is expressed but also, as I have tried to suggest, on how well it expresses deeper cultural anxieties." For instance, the War of the Worlds was successful because it tapped into people's current fears of the Nazis and World War II, which America had so far done nothing about. This is a good read, if only for the reassurance in the validity of statistics. Everyone's heard that "you're more likely to die driving home from the airport than in a plane crash"--but we haven't heard the other comforting facts as much, like the better odds that children and single mothers have today, and the drop in crime despite increased media coverage of what's left. And it's always nice to hear good news again--it's news of a dying breed.
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Summary: every American should read this
Review: this is a great book on what causes fear in our culture and the different venues such as media that feed our fear. its excellent and should be read by all!
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Summary: Good look at Americans' fears
Review: I enjoyed reading through this book. I heard about it from "Bowling for Columbine," which was a great documentary. (I especially enjoyed the coverage of Columbine; while those shootings were a horrible tragedy, I was happy to see the movie's treatment of all the people and things that parents blamed as the cause). "The Culture of Fear" really had some great statistics, and I think it's a good read from the sociological perspective, as well as for those who like to see some of the statistics for things that are such big scares. My one disappointment about the book is that it starts to get repetitive, falling back frequently to the issue of gun control. Having read it after "Bowling..." might have biased me somewhat. Overall, a good read.
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Summary: A big long string of stats
Review: Although I'm nominally on the same side of the issues as Mr. Glassner, I'm afraid this book is only mildy interesting. He dutifully sets up his straw men, and dutifully knocks them down. While criticizing the media for making trends out of isolated incidents, he does pretty much the same thing -- selecting statistics from mainstream media and then showing how they are wrong or misinterpreted. But he succumbs to the same laziness he criticizes others for: he pulls together isolated incidents with the intimation that they constitute a trend, but provides very little context for the contents of that trend. The books consists of a long collection of statistics and incidents, and, sadly, doesn't provide much insight into the real machinations behind the irrationality and short-sightedness of the American public. This orgy of debunking gets kind of tiresome after a while. Mr. Glassner does his best to give it some pace, and it is a fairly quick read, but eventually I was glad to reach the end. If you're looking for a casual introduction to how the mainstream media chooses to portray the world, then this is the book for you. Just don't expect any earth-shattering insights at the end.
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Summary: Amazing but overwhelming
Review: I have to say at some point I could not finish the book because I was not really in the right place. You just get to the point where you want to shout OK! OK! OK! so politicians, news papers and television completely overwhelm us with things that we really should not be afraid of in the first place as a clever ruse pointing us away from the truly damaging things in society. Unless I am going to be a social researcher, like mister glassman I have to confess I am going to be in the dark the vast majority of the time. Brilliant but hard to not walk away from it feeling somewhat helpless.
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