Dumbing Don Essays on the Strip-Mining of American Culture [Paperback]

With vigor, wit, learning, common sense, and urgency, twenty-three essayistincluding John Simon, Cynthia Ozick, Phillip Lopate, George F. Kennan, Sven Birkerts, Joseph Epstein, and Brad Leithauserexamine aspects of our pan-cultural dumbing down and offer both diagnoses of and possible cures for this wasting disease.A collection of savagely witty essays by a hardy band of cultural commentators who believe things are bad, really bad out there, and are not at all reluctant to say so.What distinguishes this collection is its breadth, its liveliness. This valuable book provides much ammunition for . . . unrepentant elitists.Provides the best picture we have of the declining and embarrassing condition of discourse in America.A terrific book. It is unsettling, arresting, and compelling, and its publication is a public service.Passionate observers across the political/intellectual spectrum confront the downward spiral of American life, art, and thought.