A review by dkadastra
Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History by Kurt Andersen

4.0

This was a very interesting book about the history of fantastical (and here, fantastical is mostly referring to things people believe that the author thinks are false) thought in America, and how that fantastical thinking has affected people (mostly for the worse). As a practicing Christian, I was probably more surprised than I should have been about how much Andersen focused on the dominant (at least publicly dominant) sects of Christianity in America, although I can't necessarily disagree with his conclusions. The main complaints I had were the relative lack of comparison he made to how other countries either have or don't have the phenomena he described in America. He touched on it in one chapter, but I think it would have been useful to contextualize how abnormal America is in certain ways. Definitely worth a read.