The I Index

Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America

Next in the queue

70

/100

I Index Overall Rating

Readers

75/100

Critics

40/100

Scholars

94/100

Author:

Kurt Andersen

Publisher:

Random House

Date:

August 11, 2020

Andersen shows how the masterminds of the economic right rode an unprecedented wave of nostalgia by dressing up their harsh new rich-get-richer system in patriotic old-time drag, making it their mission to take over the government for their purposes alone and convincing the country that the mid-century consensus about the function of the American government was all wrong.

What The Reviewers Say

Anand Giridharadas,
The New York Times Book Review
... essential, absorbing, infuriating, full-of-facts-you-didn’t-know, saxophonely written.
JOHN WARNER,
The Chicago Tribune
... not a slog through terrible news. The book is, perhaps counterintuitively, terrifically entertaining and engaging. Andersen is a lively and funny writer who has honed his voice through a long career as a journalist, novelist, humorist and radio host/podcaster for Studio 360. The elements he is able to pull together and weave into a narrative that so convincingly pinpoints how we arrived at this moment are consistently novel and interesting.
STEPHEN METCALF,
The Los Angeles Times
Andersen is a confident synthesizer and writes with the zeal of the recently converted.

Kirkus
... a timely, hard-hitting analysis of America’s “hijacked, screwed-up political economy.