Eric Alterman is a distinguished professor of English at CUNY Brooklyn College and holds a PhD in history from Stanford University. A columnist for the Nation, he is the author of ten previous titles, including the New York Times bestseller What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News. He lives in New York.
"Nation columnist Alterman delivers an
administration-by-administration analysis of presidential deception
from FDR to Donald Trump in this vigorously argued account...
Alterman makes a strong case for the links between presidential
dishonesty and the expansion of executive powers since WWII ... and
for the media's culpability in failing to hold presidents to
account."--Publishers Weekly
"A colorful history. Alterman seduces his readers into an
intelligent conversation about all the lies -- the necessary lies,
the white lies, the pathetic lies and the quite consequential lies.
And by the end of the story he explains the media's culpability in
the rise of Trump and why this president's lies are so very
different from all the others. An absolutely compelling book for
our troubled times."--Kai Bird, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of
American Prometheus
"A seething indictment of America's 45th president and the
politicians and moneymen whom Alterman says back him as Trump
brazenly feeds the world's social media with his lies, polluted
ideas, ignorance and irresponsible
speculations...Well-written...Lying in State is a lengthy
indictment of rotten behaviour."--Winnipeg Free Press
"Alterman gives a whirlwind tour of purposeful deception emanating
from the White House.... Alterman's historical deep-dive, arriving
just weeks before the 2020 election, is important. Lying in State
conclusively demonstrates that Trump has, as a matter of fact,
taken lying to a dangerous new level. He has not just lied; he has
endeavored to make truth irrelevant."--The Progressive
"Alterman not only directly implicates a complaisant press in
presidential deception, but illustrates how 'both sides, ' false
equivalence-fetishizing journalism set the conditions for the
inevitable arrival of someone like Trump to the highest elected
office in the land....[A] deeply researched, historical review of
presidential lying."--FAIRmediawatch
"An astounding and methodical inventory of presidential lying from
George Washington to Donald Trump. Alterman shows how the strategic
lying of past presidents about specific episodes of war, corruption
and injustice has given way in the Trump administration to
indiscriminate lying about everything. This is a cogently written,
timely and profoundly troubling book for the new age of conspiracy
theory, fake news and online disinformation. Democracy is in peril
-- and that's no lie."--Congressman Jamie Raskin (MD-8)
"Eric Alterman's superb book, Lying in State, is full of direly
needed insights. First, he offers an account of how Trump's
constant lying to undergird his failed policies compares with the
falsehoods of past presidents. Alterman rightly concludes that
Trump is far worse than any other. When his supporters say that
'Everyone has done it, ' Alterman can rightly label that another
lie. Second, Alterman -- by virtue of his in-depth research --
enables us to deal with an all-important question: Why so many
Trump followers have become addicted to what Republican Senator
Jeff Flake termed the 'sugar high of populism, nativism, and
demagoguery.'"--Walter LaFeber, The Andrew Tisch and James Tisch
Distinguished University Professor Emeritus, Cornell University
"In highly engaging prose, Eric Alterman shows how the power of the
presidency corrupts both those with the best of intentions, and
those with the worst. No one reading this provocative work of
history will ever think of our mightiest heroes of state the same
way again."--Jane Mayer, author of Dark Money
"In this history of Presidential mendacity, Alterman...delineates
centuries of lies issued from the Oval Office, culminating in those
of the Trump Presidency. He makes plain how Trump's elaboration of
that behavior, and also the media's acquiescence, confusion, and
exhaustion have eroded the country's institutions, public life, and
national spirit...Joins manifestos by Timothy Snyder, Masha Gessen,
and many others in raising the alarm against Trump's war on truth
and, by extension, on democratic life."--New Yorker, Briefly Noted
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