"In this sweeping, eloquent history of America, Kurt Andersen shows that what's happening in our country today - this post-factual, "fake news" moment we're all living through - is not something new, but rather the ultimate expression of our national character. America was founded by wishful dreamers, magical thinkers, and true believers, by hucksters and their suckers. Over the course of five centuries - from the Salem witch trials to Scientology to the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, from P. T. Barnum to Hollywood and the anything-goes, wild-and-crazy sixties, from conspiracy theories to our fetish for guns and obsession with extraterrestrials - our love of the fantastic has made America exceptional in a way that we've never fully acknowledged. From the start, our ultra-individualism was attached to epic dreams and epic fantasies - every citizen was free to believe absolutely anything, or to pretend to be absolutely anybody. Andersen explores whether the great American experiment in liberty has gone off the rails. If you want to understand Donald Trump and the culture of twenty-first-century America, if you want to know how the lines between reality and illusion have become dangerously blurred, read this book. Kurt Andersen is the author of the novels Heyday, Turn of the Century, and True Believers. He contributes to Vanity Fair and The New York Times, and is host and co-creator of Studio 360, the public radio show and podcast. He lives in Brooklyn"--Provided by publisher.

Now entering Fantasyland -- Part I: The conjuring of America: 1517-1789. I believe, therefore I am right: the Protestants ; All that glitters: the gold-seekers ; Building our own private heaven on Earth: the Puritans ; The God-given freedom to believe in God ; Imaginary friends and enemies: the early satanic panics ; The first me century: religion gets American ; Meanwhile, in the eighteenth-century reality-based community -- Part II: United States of amazing: the 1800s. The first great delirium ; The all-American fan fiction of Joseph Smith, prophet ; Quack nation: magical but modern ; Fantastic business: the gold rush inflection point ; In search of monsters to destroy: the conspiracy theory habit ; The war between states of mind ; Ten million little houses on the prairie ; Fantasy industrialized -- Part III: A long arc bending toward reason: 1900-1960. Progress and backlash ; The biggest backlash: brand-new old-time religion ; The business of America is show business ; Big rock candy mountains: utopia in the suburbs and the sun ; The 1950s seemed so normal -- Part IV: Big bang: the 1960s and '70s. Big bang: the hippies ; Big bang: the intellectuals ; Big bang: the Christians ; Big bang: politics and government and conspiracies ; Big bang: living in a land of entertainment -- Part V: Fantasyland scales: from the 1980s through the turn of the century. Making make-believe more realistic and real life more make-believe ; Forever young: kids "r" us syndrome ; The Reagan era and the start of the digital age ; American religion from the turn of the millennium ; Our wilder Christianities: belief and practice ; America versus the godless civilized world: why are we so exceptional? ; Magical but not necessarily Christian, spiritual but not religious ; Blue-chip witch doctors: the re-enchantment of medicine ; How the mainstream enabled fantasyland: squishies, cynics, and believers ; Anything goes-- unless it picks my pocket or breaks my leg -- Part VI: The problem with fantasyland: from the 1980s to the present and beyond. The inmates running the asylum decide monsters are everywhere ; Reality is a conspiracy: the x-filing of America ; Mad as hell, the new voice of the people ; When the GOP went off the rails ; Liberals denying science ; Gun crazy ; Final fantasy-industrial complex ; Our inner children? They're going to Disney World! ; The economic dreamtime ; As fantasyland goes, so goes the nation.