Amusing Ourselves to Death
Public Discourse in the Age of the Screen
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Cornerstone
Publishing:28th Jan '27
£11.99
This title is due to be published on 28th January, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
What happens when media and politics become just another form of entertainment?
'The world is choking on screens. Just as this book foretold.' – WASHINGTON POST
In 1985, Neil Postman wrote a groundbreaking polemic about the dire effects of television screens on society, ushering us into a dystopia resembling Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. It became an instant classic.
Today, we live in an age of social media, screen addiction and artificial intelligence. From the infinite scroll and waning attention spans, to dwindling literacy rates and the loss of critical thinking, Postman's warnings about the dangers of the screen are more prescient than they've ever been.
Amusing Ourselves to Death is a prophetic look at what happens when politics, news, education, and even religion become subject to the demands to what we now know as the attention economy.
With a brand-new foreword written by Jonathan Haidt – the bestselling author of The Anxious Generation – this is the definitive examination of how we are willingly sacrificing our ability to reason in the name of entertainment.
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'The 40-year-old book that predicted today’s dystopian politics.' – TIME
'When you read this book, you have to keep reminding yourself that he’s talking about television and Reagan, not the internet and Trump.' – OBSERVER
'Few writers are prophetic. An American media studies professor called Neil Postman was... His great insight was that the way we entertain ourselves matters.' – THE TIMES
The 40-year-old book that predicted today’s dystopian politics. * TIME *
Neil Postman was a prophet of the new information era... When you read this book, you have to keep reminding yourself that he’s talking about television and Reagan, not the internet and Trump. * OBSERVER *
A brilliant scholar... [an] erudite, yet snappily titled treatise. * GUARDIAN *
Few writers are prophetic. An American media studies professor called Neil Postman was... His great insight was that the way we entertain ourselves matters. * THE TIMES *
Neil Postman’s “Amusing Ourselves to Death” at 40 is truer than ever. * WASHINGTON POST *
It is hard to read [Postman's work] without feeling he is speaking specifically about us. * VOX *
It's unlikely that Trump has ever read Amusing Ourselves to Death, but his ascent would not have surprised Postman. * CNN *
Television, [Postman] wrote, had created a new “species” of information more properly described as disinformation... One trembles to think what [he] would have made of social media, which contains infinitely more creative forms to amuse ourselves. * FINANCIAL TIMES *
Postman predicted that America wasn’t trending towards existence under the boot of totalitarianism, as in George Orwell’s 1984, but drifting through the languorous haze of a feel-good dystopia that resembled Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. He was right. Democracy was not in danger of being overthrown, but over-entertained.
If he were alive in 2025, Postman would not be surprised to see that our Soma comes in the virtual variety: TikTok's infinite scroll, crypto speculation and algorithmically tuned content streams designed to blur time and lull us into its flow state.
* UNHERD *Postman was on to something important... Amusing Ourselves to Death charted the beginning of a process by which communication has become ever broader and ever shallower. * NEW REPUBLIC *
ISBN: 9781804967126
Dimensions: 198mm x 129mm x 15mm
Weight: 200g
208 pages