What happens when media and politics become forms of entertainment? As our world begins to look
more and more like Orwell's 1984 Neil's Postman's essential guide to the modern media is more
relevant than ever. It's unlikely that Trump has ever read Amusing Ourselves to Death but his
ascent would not have surprised Postman. -CNN Originally published in 1985 Neil Postman's
groundbreaking polemic about the corrosive effects of television on our politics and public
discourse has been hailed as a twenty-first-century book published in the twentieth century.
Now with television joined by more sophisticated electronic media-from the Internet to cell
phones to DVDs-it has taken on even greater significance. Amusing Ourselves to Death is a
prophetic look at what happens when politics journalism education and even religion become
subject to the demands of entertainment. It is also a blueprint for regaining control of our
media so that they can serve our highest goals. A brilliant powerful and important book.
This is an indictment that Postman has laid down and so far as I can see an irrefutable one.
-Jonathan Yardley The Washington Post Book World
