Listen free for 30 days

  • Fantasyland

  • How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History
  • Written by: Kurt Andersen
  • Narrated by: Kurt Andersen
  • Length: 19 hrs and 35 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (76 ratings)

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo + applicable taxes after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
Fantasyland cover art

Fantasyland

Written by: Kurt Andersen
Narrated by: Kurt Andersen
Try for $0.00

$14.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $50.07

Buy Now for $50.07

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Tax where applicable.

Publisher's Summary

A razor-sharp thinker offers a new understanding of our post-truth world and explains the American instinct to believe in make-believe, from the Pilgrims to P. T. Barnum to Disneyland to zealots of every stripe...to Donald Trump.

In this sweeping, eloquent history of America, Kurt Andersen demonstrates that what's happening in our country today - this strange, post-factual, "fake news" moment we're all living through - is not something entirely new, but rather the ultimate expression of our national character and path. America was founded by wishful dreamers, magical thinkers, and true believers, by impresarios and their audiences, by hucksters and their suckers. Believe-whatever-you-want fantasy is deeply embedded in our DNA.

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 60s, from conspiracy theories to our fetish for guns and obsession with extraterrestrials - our peculiar love of the fantastic has made America exceptional in a way that we've never fully acknowledged. With the gleeful erudition and tell-it-like-it-is ferocity of a Christopher Hitchens, Andersen explores whether the great American experiment in liberty has gone off the rails.

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. Little by little, and then more quickly in the last several decades, the American invent-your-own-reality legacy of the Enlightenment superseded its more sober, rational, and empirical parts. We gave ourselves over to all manner of crackpot ideas and make-believe lifestyles designed to console or thrill or terrify us. In Fantasyland, Andersen brilliantly connects the dots that define this condition, portrays its scale and scope, and offers a fresh, bracing explanation of how our American journey has deposited us here.

Fantasyland could not appear at a more perfect moment. If you want to understand the politics and culture of 21st-century America, if you want to know how the lines between reality and illusion have become dangerously blurred, you must listen to this book.

©2017 Kurt Andersen (P)2017 Random House Audio

What the critics say

"This is an important book - the indispensable book - for understanding America in the age of Trump. It's an eye-opening history filled with brilliant insights, a saga of how we were always susceptible to fantasy, from the Puritan fanatics to the talk-radio and Internet wackos who mix show business, hucksterism, and conspiracy theories." (Walter Isaacson)
"Kurt Andersen is America's voice of reason. What is he - Canadian? The people who should read this book won't - because it's a book - but reality-based citizens will still get a kick out of this winning romp through centuries of American delusion." (Sarah Vowell)
" Fantasyland presents the very best kind of idea - one that, in retrospect, seems obvious, but that took a seer like Kurt Andersen to piece together. The thinking and the writing are both dazzling; it is at once a history lesson and an oh-so-modern cri de coeur; it's an absolute joy to read and will leave your brain dancing with excitement long after you're done." (Stephen Dubner)

What listeners say about Fantasyland

Average Customer Ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    62
  • 4 Stars
    7
  • 3 Stars
    6
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    52
  • 4 Stars
    12
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    54
  • 4 Stars
    7
  • 3 Stars
    5
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Never finished

Listened to a radio talk show with the author, he seemed funny and amusing. I thought I would purchase his book to review his book but as a Canadian...it's a little to American bureaucracy for me and didn't get through the first chapter.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

One of the most important books I’ve ever read

Taking shots at neither conservatives nor liberals specifically, but at fantasy thinking in both camps that threatens to pull us further apart, Fantasyland is fearless, thought-provoking, essential reading that offers a way forward through truly unusual times. Andersen’s writing is matched by his reading. A pleasure to listen and to ponder.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
  • A.O
  • 2020-12-11

An amazing depiction of America and the "Dream"

This book traces through history many common "tropes" we've come to know as "fact"... and have inserted into our belief systems as "reality". We all have the choice for what we want to believe is "real"... but do we always know that we're making choices on the back of decisions made in history and carried forward by the big players in American history? Fantasyland gives us all the opportunity to decide what is "really" America and also what does that mean to our individual "belief" choices.

Would recommend this book to everyone interested in understanding why "fake news" can mean all things to all people so easily as well. Great job by the Author!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

as good as everyone says

surprisingly the guy can narrate really well. Have had some bad experiences with author/narrators but this is good

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Exactly what u expect

Burned through this wonderfully deep expose on the history of how and why America is bat shit crazy in so many ways, yet no other modern western nation comes even close. If after reading the description you have a thought you may enjoy this book, you will.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Overall interesting, but dragged in places

I found the book to be generally interesting, though I wish the author had spent more time on the earlier, historical parts of the book and less on the more recent parts.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

So that's how Trump became president !

This is a long but thought-provoking thesis which explains a lot about current American culture.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
  • CT
  • 2017-11-07

A timely and important book

Succinct and entertaining, enlightening and funny, it’s an absolutely essential guide to how we got to our absurd present.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!