Mutant Microbes - & So Much More

The Culture of Fear by Barry Glassner is an extremely well researched book. If you ever find yourself becoming afraid from the stories on the news about things such as kidnapping or plane crashes you should pick up this book and read it immediately. This book is not merely to entertain you, although at a certain level it is rather entertaining, once you realize people are so easily manipulated by people in influential positions like reporters. Mainly it is to inform people that they are ultimately being "brainwashed" by the media. Glassner goes on to explain that the media is not interested in informing people of actual facts, statistics, or situations they should fear. They are merely focused on using the stories that sell, the statistics that grab people's attention.

This book is one big vessel that simply contains seven years worth of data, statistics, facts, quotes, and other information. Glassner takes what reporters and the media have said with their evidence and then explained it in a much more understanding way that reveals that there is nothing really to fear. As you continue reading this book you only become more and more astounded by the stupidity of the human race. Fact after fact just makes us look utterly ridiculous. After reading this book you will be much more informed and much more critical about how much emotion you invest into fearing unnecessary things such as road rage and killer kids.

Glassner takes the time to objectively evaluate the fears of our society. He shows that many of the dangers that are commonly accepted as fact have little or no supporting evidence. The book contains detailed explanations of how these scares are developed and perpetuated; it also devotes some attention to why people are so susceptible to these "fear mongers," although those arguments are more speculative than the rest of the book's contents.
Glassner is clearly not without an agenda; he repeatedly makes the point that the attention, time, and money devoted to these false dangers could be much better spend on actually useful social services and policies. But I think that even if you disagree with his politics, it is still hard to find flaws in his research and reasoning showing that these scares are unreasonable, overplayed, and in some sense destructive. And I think that almost anyone will find something in the book that they held as true being thoroughly debunked. It's the wealth of surprising yet well-supported facts that makes this book one of my favorites.

The 32nd president of the united states, Franklin Roosevelt, in one of his speeches has said that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. It's unquestionable that fears have insurmountable negative effects and they surely can cause harship. A book entitled, The Culture of Fear, by Barry Glassner, professor of sociology at USC, is an important book you need to checkout if you really need an intellectual awareness of how to avoid most America's baseless fears(road rage, crime, drugs, plane crashes...). Glassner's refers to most of our fears as misplaced, overdrawn, unflated, off-base, misbegotton, overblown and so on. The author focuses on the media that are bombarding us everyday with their sensationalistic stories. Glassner calls them, "fear mongers." The writer also exposes the way "fear vendors" profit from our anxieties. I admired the author's emotional tones in the book particularly when he said, "IT IS THE GUN, STUPID!"
This book is highly recommended. Check it out! And once you finish reading it, stand up and advocate, "WOE TO FEAR MONGERS!"

I have read a great number of media criticisms, but this is absolutely the best I have found. On the back cover, there is a rave from Neil Postman (one of my heroes), and he is right about what a great book this is. The writer does not blame the media, he says good things about journalists who are responsible, and he skewers the others hwo spread lots of fears about crime, drugs, road rage, airline safety, women, minorities, etc. etc. etc. As an added plus, he has a great sense of humor.

This book has broadened my understanding of the media and how manipulative it is. The American culture has been spoiled by the inaccurate portrayal of events to society. Glassner used many facts that are not otherwise known because it shows positive progress America is making, things that the media never focuses on because they aren't "interesting" enough. It is very obvious that Glassner is very opinionated, and in some instances I feel as though he never tried to understand the opposite side of the issue. It has opened my eyes to how much America's fears are based off of what the media portrays rather than actual facts. I found it very interesting that crime has been decreasing in recent years, while media coverage of crime has risen over 100%. This creates a false image to the public that crime is rising....creating fear that isn't necessary...fear that should be focused on things that are actually a threat (cancer, cigarettes, pollution). This book has made me realize the falsities in the media and after reading it, I now notice the many things about which Glassner has criticized the media.

Glassner has an uncanny ability to make a person see things in a different way. I suppose that people with closed-minds, be they lefties or rightwingers, won't like this book, because it challenges many of the assumptions that ideologues on both sides of the political spectrum hold dear to their hearts. But for someone like me, who is tired of being fed lies from both sides, and from scare manufacturing reporters also, The Culture of Fear is a great read.

I learned of this book through Bowling for Columbine. The portion of the film with Barry Glassner was extremely interesting, and this book lived up to my expectations.
Glassner covers an array of public fears, from the absurd (candy tampering) to the prevalent (black males, drugs, commercial flights). Culling from an extensive base of well-researched facts, Glassner provides a context for understanding the continuing trend of why Americans fears are often misdirected.
Published in 1999, I couldn't help but thinking how Glassner would examine post 9-11 fears, especially in the context of profiling. That said, much of the book is easily applicable to a post 9-11 society, which makes it all the more interesting.

This is a very well researched book that details the statistical basis for the things that we do and do not fear in American culture today. What are the consequences of our current fears in terms of the well being of our children and why do we have the fears that we do? Research like that which is detailed in this book can provide us insight into these critical questions.

Glassner makes the point that media and political leaders distort numbers to their advantage and create a great fear among the citizen than in actually neccessary. He bring out that media has a tendency to focus on a certain topic and concentrate while ignoring critical fact biasing informantion to their whim. However I personally found that his basic idea was common sense and could have proven his point in a shorter essay rather than a book of 210 pages. I began to skim the pages couples chapters into the book.
However you do gain considerable insight into the deceptive statistics that have scewed the concept the the dangers of society. for instance, the road rage fury in the past couple years. the road rages seemed to be a huge problem but they were actually rare incidences. however, the press seem to point every accident to road rage when it could actually be attributed to stress just a plain accident.
Also some of the material seems dated. The book was publish in 1999, so the research is from dates before these dates. he discusses the priest scandals as an extremely rare occurances but last years findings don't coincide with his dated research. don't hihgly recommend but not a total waste of time either. my guess is that he will be coming out with a revised or a newer edition some time later

Barry Glassner takes a solidly skeptical approach to commonly proclaimed threats. He does an excellent job of refuting the hype and clamor of the media.
Much like Chomsky, he describes the effect of a filtered media and one which provides us with pre-digested opinion masquerading as fact. He also fingers the popularized "Talk-Show" and does not spare them a scathing critique.
The book is well written and a compelling read.
Glassner also demonstrates how easy it is to fall into the trap of finding only facts which support our pet beliefs, and even falls headlong into one of his own making. His diatribe against guns, and his surety that they were the root cause of Columbine and other crimes spoke of belief and not of fact. I was sure that it was a trick and that he would recant it with a flourish at the end, saying "You see!", but alas, he seemingly ignores all evidence which refutes his position on guns. How could somebody so well researched have missed John Lott and Gary Kleck?
It is a fine book, and the stumble over guns does not cripple its power, but only serves to underline the absolute importance to think clearly and to challenge our own beliefs constantly.

I think this book is an excellent read for anyone who is afraid of what they see on the news every night. I purchased this book to review for a class, and I can honestly say that I feel safer in my home as a result of reading this. Glassner does an excellent job of putting some "risks" in perspective, and completely debunking others. I often walk in the evenings near my home, but have been nervous to leave too close to dusk. This book has made me realize how unliklely it is that I might be at danger in my middle-class suburb. At the same time, it has made me more aware of how much riskier it is to make budget cuts in early childhood education and food programs for the elderly. Food for thought!

This book is a very thinly veiled political agenda in which Glassner practices what he preaches against. His thesis is mainly that the media use sensationalism and poor reporting to create fear, but he is inconsistent is supporting the thesis and spends a vast amount of space to presenting his personal opinions against select issues. The book, for the most part, seems to be a tirade against guns, anti-abortionists, PC cops, and road rage.
Take the gun issue. His objection is not that the media uses gun related events to create fear, but rather the opposite, that the media panders to gun proponents who try to dispel the fear of gun use and to emphasis the positive uses of guns.
In another of his despised issues, political correctness, he is not true to his thesis, the culture of fear. Glassner neither seems to believe in political correctness nor does he make the case that the media are creating fear over it. In fact, he implies that PC's success was caused by a few conservative think tanks, foundations, and newspapers. But, he notes that there were tens of thousands of media references to it, bashes the media for fear mongering, and then uses a select handful of the same media anecdotes to "disprove" PC's validity. Glassner references Malcolm Gladwell, who wrote The Tipping Point, a book that maybe he should have read first.
In his attempt to demonize certain issues, he confuses cause with execution, for example, he concludes a section on television programming, "TV shows do not kill or maim people. Guns do." Researchers are looking for why people kill, not how they do it! One can argue about his defense of TV and demonizing of guns, but his personal opinions still don't support the thesis of the book. They are just his opinions, and he continually mixes the use of statistics with the use of anecdotes and opinions, and seldom does one support the other.
Glassner calls the Wall Street Journal "a retailer of fears," although he credits it for some positive articles when they support his agenda. Then he characterizes our nation as being "gun crazed." Isn't he doing what he's accusing the media of? I suggest that Glassner has used fear in the title of his book for sensationalism to promote its sale, and it worked!
It's too bad Glassner couldn't have saved his political rants for a later book. He could entitle it "Why you should fear everything I don't like."

I was cruising the 'net while watching the news last month and came across various references to The Culture of Fear. Then I read the comments on the store and got really intrigued. Here's the bottom line, folks: the gun nuts who have sent negative comments are totally off the mark (pun intended). First off, Glassner is right about what he says about guns, and he provides loads of evidence. Second off, talk about guns takes up maybe 2% of the book! If you want to know what this brilliant book is REALLY about, read the subtitles (why Americans are afraid of the wrong things, like road rage, crime, kids, and so forth). I learned more about the current state of American society from this book than from a year's worth of newspapapers-- which The Culture of Fear put in a whole new perspective anyway.

Mr. Glassner does a fantastic job backing his premise with well-rounded statistic and trend analysis. I was skeptical of the book because I thought it might be just another negative view of the media and government, pointing out every single one of their flaws (yes, I agree there are boatloads). The arguments are sound and well supported, and while I went into the book agreeing with Mr. Glassner, I would be hard pressed to find a good counterargument if I hadn't. This is the book everybody should read in order to understand the media's detrimental (I do believe unintentionally detrimental) approach.

While Barry Glassner writes with his heart on his sleeve, at least his political and social biases are out-front and in the open. I found the book to be a quick read, well-documented, and full of thought-provoking material.

My one gripe is that while I generally agree with his thesis, so many of his specific examples of media manipulation of public fear turned out to be so *wrong*! For example, he cites the villification of Catholic clergy as an example of unjustified fear based on perhaps homophobia, but this turned out to be a valid fear in the wake of the discovery of many cases of abuse and cover up. Another example is his discussion of how Americans fear Islamic terrorists for no reason, since the Kansas City bombings were perpetrated by US citizens. However, in the wake of 9/11 this can only be counted as a horrific counter-point to his system of beliefs.

I think this book could use an updating that takes more valid examples of media manipulation. Otherwise, quite thought provoking.

The problem with this book is it does exactly what it criticizes. It over-simplifies things. Alot of things it narrows down to a single problem, like guns. Without guns kids wouldn't have the means to do mass shootings. But I think the more important issue here is Why di kids want to create mass mayhem in the first place and what can we do for them that would make them not want to create mass mayhem. Better gun control is fine, and it may help. But if something psychologically is wrong with them, getting rid of guns is not helping them out. They'll just find other means of enacting their revenge on the world.

Mr. Glassner writes well and carefully, a rare combination these days, imho. Reading this book left me feeling ecnouraged because I had long suspected that some of the myths he lays to rest were just that, myths. I have already ordered another copy to give to a worrywort friend of mine for her birthday.

Glassner does an excellent job of exposing the fallacies behind many of the hysterias fostered by the media and government. Judicious use of documented quotes, studies and examples coupled with impeccable logic demonstrate how the American public has been duped into fearing many things. He also discusses how these misplaced fears actually harm society by preventing us from addressing the issues that *really* need to be fixed.
Anyone that writes a negative review of this book has been so thoroughly duped by pro-gun, anti-drug, pro-prison, anti-PC factions in our society that they don't want to see what Glassner is showing them. His logical arguments are difficult to refute and cannot simply be dismissed as liberal agenda.

I ordered The Culture of Fear after reading a favorable review of it in the Washington Post. This book is worth it just for the parts about "killer kids." With all of the media going insane about school shooting and the like, Glassner's calm and research-oriented approach is very welcome. I see that someone sent in a comment that the book will appeal only to leftists, but I don't know what they're talking about. Glassner's book is about as balanced as anything I've ever seen. He takes out after liberals, conservatives and in-between whenever they inflict useless fears on the population. Read it and decide for yourself! As for me, I think The Culture of Fear is a really important book.

Barry Glassner's appearance in Micheal Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" made this book a hot sell among fans of the film. Glassner's insight into the fear injected into all Americans through the media via distorted statistics and blatant overcoverage is outrageous. His discussion of everything from plane crashes to portrayls of blacks, from effects of abotion to aliens leaves the reader in awe. Though even more in awe at the book's conclusion as he makes predictions about what may be necessary to unite a country divided over fear.

I instinctively knew that what was being described night after night on the TV news and week after week in the news journals couldn't be as bad as they were making it. Turns out it isn't. The axiom, "figures don't lie, but liers do figure" also turns out to be true. My personal congratulations and thanks to Professor Glassner for taking the time to dig up the facts surrounding the real story.

Bacteria, con-men, teenage gangsters, eggs--everything and everyone around me seemed so threatening. Even though I've seen the figures on the declining rate of crime and know the odds of picking up a deadly virus from the Hilton are one in a billion, I had bought into America's culture of fear. Fear of the known, the unknown, the neighbor down the street and the local butcher. Now, thanks to Barry Glassner's book, I'm no longer afraid to leave my house, stay in a hotel room, buy chicken, send my kid to public school. This should be required reading for every parent and teacher.

Spent hours waiting for jury duty but the time went by so quickly while reading this important book. It really makes you question the way the media and politicians depict so many events and "facts" and the ways they distort them.

In the course of reading Barry Glassner's "The Culture of Fear," I was surprised that Glassner took a more balanced view than I had at first expected. After being featured in left-wing muckracker, Michael Moore's latest film, "Bowling for Columbine," I had assumed Glassner, too, had produced a one-sided liberal rant about the corporate-controlled media interests. I was wrong.
While some of Glassner's conclusions may be questionable, like his statements without clear evidence that the availability of guns are almost entirely to blame for the nation's violence, much of his book is filled with example-after-example of familiar media-propagated scares of the 1990s along with well-researched statistics to debunk the myths. After reading the book, the pattern became clear of how the media spins its stories to make them deliberately misleading in order to sell fear and keep viewers and readers plugged in. I believe this educational experience has made me a more savvy and skeptical consumer of the news.
While Glassner's primary target in "The Culture of Fear" is the media, other groups are also shamed along the way (and they aren't all conservatives, either!) For instance, he spends a fair amount of time accusing feminists of propagating the silicone breast implant scares for symbolic gains even as study-after-study, some very large, involving tens of thousands of women showed no increased evidence of medical problems due to the implants.
One trend that I found amusing in many of the scares is that genuine experts are often ignored in the propagation of the fears. When genuine experts are consulted and disagree with the media's spin, their rational hard-facts explanations are often dismissed with a brush of the hand from the interviewer and followed by a, "but what about all the children?" or "but you can't deny people are suffering?" when there may be no connection between the suffering and the purported cause or the chances of the threat occurring being several times less likely than being struck by lightning. Instead, for airline safety stories, we rely on "seasoned traveler" Joe Blow, as if by riding an airplane a couple times a month Joe is an expert or we rely on college student and self-proclaimed researcher, Marty Rimm, for all that is known about Cyberporn and our children's exposure to it. (Rimm achieved earlier fame by manipulating the media in high school with a trumped-up scare of teenagers spending time in New Jersey casinos. Later debunked, you'd think the media would be more skeptical of him when he applied his manipulation tactics again.) The pattern is similar: when reporters are trying to propagate a scare, they find whomever they can to agree with their pre-decided point-of-view, not matter their dubious qualifications, and ignore anyone who casts doubt on the sensationalized arguments, regardless of their authority.
Yes, I am sure there are conclusions within the book that will make conservatives irate, like the observation that it is poverty that causes crime, not race or crack, but it is interesting to find out that in an era when crime rates were dropping, coverage of crime increased 600%, thus creating an impression on the public that crime is out of control. And, no, things aren't any worse now than they were before...a lot of bad things happened in the past, too, like kids killing kids, but it is the media coverage, not the trend that is growing.
Overall, it is a good read and well-documented. Most of the spin is transparent enough to separate it from the interesting factual data contained within it. If you are living in fear of terrorism or any of the other scare-du-jour, this book is definitely worth a read.

Along with Emile Durkheim's examination of suicide, and countless other assessments, Barry Glassner, with his book titled, The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things, adds himself to a list of sociologists addressing social problems. A professor of sociology at the University of Southern California, Glassner is specifically interested in debunking social problems that have been exaggerated and over-played in America causing unnecessary fear. On most accounts, he successfully refutes many of America's fears about crime, deviance, and social dysfunction, and his book reads smoothly and easily. For the numerous Americans who remain blinded by politicians and the media, it is certainly an eye-opening and worthy read. However, Glassner's book does not come without fault. I could not rid myself of a growing disapproval as I continued towards the end of the book. It seems that, instead of providing a thorough analysis of America's culture of fear, as his book title hints, he remains caught up in listing numerous specific case complaints towards the media and others who are to blame for misleading the populous. Therefore, while filing numerous complaints towards the media etc., he fails to enter into any real depth of social analysis. At times, Glassner also reports some seemingly tainted inconsistencies in his writing. In end, I concluded that while Glassner's book serves as a good tool in popularizing somewhat necessary skepticism towards the media, it does little to make a profound contribution to sociology.

Glassner's book begins with a question that underlies the entirety of its pages. Specifically, he asks, "Why are so many fears in the air, and so many of them unfounded?(XI)" Glassner seeks to answer why our fears are disproportionate to our everyday life, and at least, why are they so misplaced. Consequently, Glassner bombards the reader with numerous cases where fear has been used and abused. He then begins debunking such cases by quoting several media sources and the like, which have overblown certain events. For example, in Glassner's first case in point, the "road rage" scare, he uses a source from an ABC 20/20 announcer who is quoted saying, "They're all around you(people with road rage), everywhere you drive, waiting to explode.(3)" Similarly to this 20/20 newscaster, Glassner repeatedly points to the ability of the media to twist stories and make incidents seem far more imminent than they really are. He says, "People's stories seldom make the simple or singular point that journalists profess they do.(143)" Then, after illustrating this ability of the media, he attempts to find the method or meaning behind their madness.

In essence, Glassner says that continually the same reasons are found behind these scares. First, Glassner points to the "if it bleeds, it leads" motto of those relaying the news. This is cause for countless cases where emotion is seen to trump accuracy. Glassner also notes the selfish reasoning behind this thinking. For example, he says that media organizations tend to exaggerate stories, or select specific news because they seek readers, or more specifically money. Also, he says that politicians twist their news in search for votes or other selfish reasons.

Secondly, Glassner says that these media scares are cover-ups for much larger underlying social problems. Glassner hypothesizes that, "Our fear grows with our unacknowledged guilt(72)." In essence, fears are promoted as we continually hide in shame towards the social ails which truly plague society. He says that, "In just about every contemporary American scare, rather than confront disturbing shortcomings in society the public discussion centers on disturbed individuals.(6)" This offers explanation for the scares that run untamed. For example, as Glassner discusses the crack baby scare, he says, "A by-product of social and economic distress, crack became the explanation for that distress (136)." Or in the case of road rage, Glassner notes, there are 17,000 deaths caused by DUI crashes versus the 200 deaths per year caused by road rage. Glassner says we are spending a great deal of time and money focusing on something as minuscule as road rage, when DUI's and easy access to guns are constantly being overlooked. Similarly, we worry about "Gulf War Syndrome" instead of worrying about shortcomings of the military, or we worry about violence at work when we should worry about the millions of jobs lost each year, and so on. Adding credibility to Glassner's arguments, he backs up his theories and debunking with a plethora of outside sources that provide statistics and valuable quotes.

Therefore, Glassner successfully argues against numerous scares time and time again. He has an organized plan that he effectively uses, and he also proves to have given many hours of research into his project with statistics and quotes galore. However, as said earlier, his book does not come without fault. As his book developed I kept waiting for Glassner to switch over from his continuous scare cases and complaints into chapters devoted to discussing the actual culture of fear. Much to my dismay, it never happened. Nearly up until the books completion he speaks about the scare of plane wrecks, and even after he finally completes that episode, he still only devotes the last five pages to what he calls "Final Thoughts." I couldn't help but feel like I had just watched a Jerry Springer episode where after a half-hour of arguing and fighting, Mr. Springer devotes the last thirty seconds to stepping back and delivering his "final thoughts." Consequently, the downfall of this book as a contribution to sociology lies in its inability to spend considerable time evaluating the culture of fear as a whole. Glassner spends little time in deep social analysis, and even less time in hypothesizing how America can rectify the situation (and no mention is made to why people haven't tried to do so previously). While the back cover of the book places it in the current affairs/ sociology section, it is apparent that it leans much closer to the current affairs classification than it does to sociology.

Furthermore, Glassner sometimes seems to fall under ideological spells and tainted views similar to the very ones he criticizes. The foremost example comes as Glassner repeatedly points to America's lax gun policies as the underlying reason for violence in America. He points to the fact that many killings could be avoided if people didn't have such easy access to guns. However, with this explanation and no proof backing it, I found it hard to swallow his thinking as factual. Perhaps, with this current of thought, Glassner should have also promoted getting cars of the road or at least addressed the question- Is access to cars correlated to automobile crashes in the same way that gun access is correlated to violence? In another occasion, tainted gun views once more caused for inconsistency in his thoughts. That is, Glassner criticizes politicians for capitalizing on famous child-abduction cases to get feel-good laws passed to boost their popularity, but he championed Scotland for passing a reactionary law banning .22 caliber weapons in response to a rare occasion that a man used one to shoot someone at school.

If you approach this book with the notion that some Liberal or Conservative wrote this book with bad intentions, don't bother reading it because you won't get it. The fact is, fear is used to sell, scare, and drive up ratings on CNN AND Fox News.
Everthing in this book is true about us as a society. Check it out.

I am a Neighborhood Watch activist. I deal with gangs and thugs all the time. As a former Marine Corps Military Policeman I simply have no fear. My fear of carnage and death was used up at the age of 18. The point here regarding this "Culture of Fear" is that I often think of this phrase when people say "Arn't you afraid?" I say "of what, walking around in my own free country with my head up?" They are often perplexed as if the answer is far too complex to quickly fathom. I would agree with the author that we have a lot of scared people in this world and many of them have no idea why. They also project their subconscious template of fear onto others, assuming the rest of us are also afraid and not grasping why some of us are not - but [shakingly] certain that we should be. Gangs dress, walk, pack together and glare to cause fear. Realize that this is what the fearful do [not the brave] and you'll know where the fear is and who has it.

Although many of the same issues are in Chambliss' 1999 book "Power, Politics, and Crime," this author does an excellent job of making Americans aware of how institutions such as the media can easily manipulate the population. For those who are interested in this topic, I suggest you read the book for yourself. Do not be one of those peoples who blindly make assumptions by reading only the title. Read the whole book and discover the truth!

Being called "The Culture of Fear", it's only inevitable that subjects discussed could be disturbing, controversial, shocking, and sometimes depressing or terrifying.

Unfortunately, Barry Glassner, brilliant as he may be, just doesn't seem into the subject he has obviously put a lot of research into. It proudly delves into the depths of why Americans are afraid of the wrong things, and then goes about like a college professor lecturing to an apathetic class in the last years of his career with a big pension on the horizon.

He explains subjects methodically, then casually slips to the alter side of it, in such a way it sounds as if he were saying in a falsely lively tone, "Murders have gone down n%, HOWEVER murder coverage has gone up nnn%! Isn't that something?" or "Racism is a problem, as this 'n' report states, although the reverse is also true that n% of hate crimes has been about race as opposed to..."

It becomes lifeless, and loses its feel of a nonfiction work of research and more like hundreds of pages of statistics and numbers taped together and strung together with words so as to make it coherent. In all, it becomes a dull expose' which really, all in all, doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know.

A detailed analyses on that which fathers the violence in our Nation. How true his argument becomes when you start to notice the 'fear' that bombards you every day--junk mail, commercials, radio, magazines. It's quite ubiquitous. Travel to Europe or Canada and you'll really notice the difference. See "Bowling For Columbine" as a great follow-up on our nation of FEAR!

Fear is one of our biggest motivators. And seeing how more and more violant our society, and the world, is getting is a result of fears. But what we are afraid of is what in fact we are bringing to the surface--violence. This is the result of ignorance. This book is a interesting read. One of the best analysis of human nature as it relates to fears born out of zealot religious dogma is called, "I Talked To God And He Wants To Talk To You".

This guy is the darling of the politically correct media. The media may cover some things too much and teh really important left wing causes too little, but all their big government solutions -- more taxes and regulation -- will "solve" what real problems do exist.

Great insight from a great observer. Glasner captures the sad and unfortunate essence of American media, hype, and culture. This book is a must read for those of us concerned about how fear is used to manipulate the message -- for whatever purpose. It's a scary world, but not for the reasons we are made to believe.

While the book is slightly outdated in this post September 11th world, Glassner's research regarding the way mass media exploit rare and tragic occurences is still relevant. However, some of his citations regarding such issues as firearms would have gotten me laughed out of my undergraduate courses.

With that aside, I still recommend this book. It is a great way to provide perspective for those who may be overwhelmed by what they see on the nightly news or read in their local papers.

Having read the introduction, and noted his attention to detail, I was amazed that he suddenly changed his tone on the hot button issue of guns. After admitting that crime rates have gone down, yet crimes are overreported, he turned around and repeated every statement the fearmongers use about guns, as if they were fact. These statements are the only ones in the book not refuted or challanged. His obvious bias taints the quality of the book. I cannot trust his research, if such a well documented topic as firearms was so badly handled due to his personal bias.

This book backs up its arguments with statistics, and answers the questions we all have--which of the supposed signs of Armageddon are simply mass-media driven, and which are, finally, well-founded concerns? A great book.

Barry Glassner turns conventional wisdom upside down in this eye opening and enlightening book. Glassner clearly show how gulible and uncritical the American public is in general toward today's media.

America's culture goes though ours lives in each part of the world. This book invites us to think about american paranoia and refuse big lies. It tells about crimes, drugs, science, and other subjects manipulated to serve an ideology. Nobody, none culture, needs this crazy way of life. A big deal !

Having read the introduction, and noted his attention to detail, I was amazed that he suddenly changed his tone on the hot button issue of guns. After admitting that crime rates have gone down, yet crimes are overreported, he turned around and repeated every statement the fearmongers use about guns, as if they were fact. These statements are the only ones in the book not refuted or challanged. His obvious bias taints the quality of the book. I cannot trust his research, if such a well documented topic as firearms was so badly handled due to his personal bias.

This book backs up its arguments with statistics, and answers the questions we all have--which of the supposed signs of Armageddon are simply mass-media driven, and which are, finally, well-founded concerns? A great book.

Barry Glassner turns conventional wisdom upside down in this eye opening and enlightening book. Glassner clearly show how gulible and uncritical the American public is in general toward today's media.

America's culture goes though ours lives in each part of the world. This book invites us to think about american paranoia and refuse big lies. It tells about crimes, drugs, science, and other subjects manipulated to serve an ideology. Nobody, none culture, needs this crazy way of life. A big deal !

The PBS show "Bowling for Columbine" is better and available on DVD. This book is very similar in many ways. Although better organized, it sheds little real additional information. If you prefer reading, this might be the approach for you. Even so, consider the show first and then read this.

Very simple. This is a good book, but the author ruins it by replacing his own anti-gun agenda with the media. Is true we worry about the wrong things, but this man shouldn't have the right to tell us what to be afraid of any more than other entities. Glassner doesn't want to eliminate the ability of the mass media or ideologues to tell us how to think, he just wants their job....

I initially had high hopes for this book but instead was completely disgusted. The author meticulously points out every flaw with the right wing or media studies. However, he disproves them using other studies that fit his theories but never offers any reason why his example studies are valid. Why, if the other studies were incorrect and poorly executed, should we believe that the studies he cites are any different? What makes them credible? It seems as if they are offered as correct and credible simply because they fit his liberal agenda. As someone who equally criticizes both liberals and conservatives, I need more explanation in order to believe his words. By not taking the extra time to explain, he loses all sense of credibility.

Furthermore, Mr. Glassner dissects every issue in his book, offering underlying explanations and motives to the fears. However, a gross lack of depth is shown when he says something such as "[i]t's the guns, stupid." What a shallow argument. He never offers any reasonable statement as to *why* it's the guns. He doesn't explore the reasons behind why people shoot others. He doesn't examine the motives, the societal influences or any other of the number of causes of gun violence. Instead, he blames it all on the guns, as if they simply shoot on their own. His focus on this issue has absolutely no depth of research or explanation and shows his greatest weakness: putting an agenda ahead of real study and examination. Instead of looking at the *reasons* why people commit violence and murder, such as mental instability, extreme religious beliefs, gangs, or whatever else, the author chalks it all up to the shallow argument that a tool, just a single tool, is responsible for all the ills of society. Obviously, as tragedies such as the Oklahoma City bombing and 9/11 have shown, guns are not the sole reason for evil, though by reading Glassner's work, you would never know that.

I expected much more from a respected sociologist. This book was possibly the worst I've read in years. It seems as if Mr. Glasner never learned the art of persuasive argument writing. You can only persuade one if your own information is credible and valid. His isn't.

Don't bother reading this book. I deeply regret buying it.

I had heard pretty good things about this book but was disappointed in it (and actually gave up on it with about 60 pages to go.) The chapters each cover different subjects but they all are making the same point: media plays up a new fear periodically by bending statistics and using sensationalized reporting. Even with new subjects as examples, the theme was repetitive with no new insights.

Also, the author does have his own pet fear: he is afraid of guns. And he is willing to use the same type of incomplete (and/or discredited) statistics he accuses media of using in other subjects in an attempt to inspire his fear in readers.

This book is a most thorough and informative investigation of modern fears -- but I feel that it is a dis-service to Americans in this day and age to focus even more on the issue of fear; which is SOOOOO destructive and counterproductive. I much prefer the work of authors such as Tony Robbins, Napoleon Hill, and Clint Arthur, who focus on positive aspects of living instead of the negatives. In particular, Clint's "9 Free Secrets of New Sensual Power" is a superb example of how concentrating on positive influences can have a beneficial impact on life.

This is an appallingly bad book. The underlying premise - that our lives are dominated by irrational, media-inflamed fears that cause us to act against our own best interests - undoubtedly has a lot of merit. An honest, thoughtful exploration of this topic could yield valuable insights into American life. But if you're looking for those insights, you won't find them here.

This train does not even get out of the station before it runs off the tracks. On page xv of the introduction Glassner says, "We had better learn to doubt our inflated fears before they destroy us." This is a perfect example of the kind of fear mongering the book purports to debunk, and it is a sign of what lies ahead.

Culture of Fear is riddled with flimsy logic, thin documentation and pure assertion. Glassner picks odd "fears" to focus on and then often fails to debunk them. For example, he decries concerns about single motherhood by citing reporting of clearly marginal critics who focus on the morality of single motherhood rather than its social and economic implications. Having focused on the wrong issue, he then "debunks" it by citing studies showing that life outcomes for children of single- and dual-parent families are comparable - given comparable economic circumstances. This is a tautology - the playing field is level as long as it's level. Glassner completely ignores the key issue - the differences in economic circumstances themselves. These circumstances clearly are better for women who complete their education and are married or at least in stable relationships (and thus benefit from the economic support of a partner) before becoming parents than they are for young women who begin having children before they finish high school. The playing field is not level at all.

Glassner devotes a few pages to the fear of pedophilic priests. (This book was published in 1999, before the true extent of the Catholic Church's sex abuse scandal was fully known). He argues that the media inflated this fear through relentless coverage and reliance on excessive estimates. Of course, he cites only a single source to refute these estimates - a Catholic priest who was understandably troubled by the coverage. More importantly, he completely ignores the core reasons for entirely legitimate concern. It's not that people think all or most, or even many, priests are guilty, as he suggests. Rather, people are outraged because any incident of priestly abuse is violates a deep trust and because the Church hierarchy evidently knew about it and covered it up.

Elsewhere, Glassner focuses on fears that we are raising a generation of wild, violent children. The book was published shortly before Columbine, an event suggesting that these fears may not be so exaggerated. Glassner cites the horrific murder of a 3-year-old boy by two 10-year-olds in England, arguing that the media unjustifiably focused on concern that the murderers might represent a trend. The evidence Glassner cites in response consists entirely of a quote from a single British journalist relating a conversation she had about the crime with her 10-year-old son.

Meanwhile, Glassner almost completely ignores perhaps the most significant and over-inflated fear we have about our children - that they will be abducted (and worse) by a stranger. As I understand it, the per capita incidence of such crimes has not changed much over the years. What has changed is how extensively they are reported. Any parent can understand the fear these reports generate. But in the aggregate they have caused us to raise a generation of children who have not been allowed to go outside, explore their surroundings, take little risks and spontaneously make friends and play with them. The consequences of this change in child-rearing are yet to be understood. This would be a wonderful subject for a sociologist to explore. Glassner's exploration of this issue is a total of two pages long and is devoted entirely to the failure of two business that provided child-identification services (information that would argue against, rather than for, the proposition that this fear is over-inflated).

As flimsy as these sections of the book are, it gets worse. In the chapter on children, Glassner argues that our fears reflect our "unacknowledged guilt" over public policy. "By slashing spending on educational, medical and anti-poverty programs for youth," Glassner writes, "we adults have committed great violence against them. Yet rather than face up to our collective responsibility we project our violence onto young people themselves, and onto strangers we imagine will attack them." Where is the evidence for these assertions? Spending on the programs he cites has done nothing but increase over the years - any "slashing" has amounted only to reducing the rate of growth. The notion of guilt-transference is a psychobabble assertion made by the author without a shred of support..

Similarly, Glassner offers up gun control as the needed solution to a host of problems. I happen to agree with him that it is a good idea, but he presents it as a panacea without a bit of evidence. The book is riddled with unsupported assertions of this kind.

In the end, Culture of Fear is not a sociological study at all. Rather, it is mostly an editorial in favor of Glassner's political opinions. It is interesting to note that Glassner is a crony of, and has been highly influential on, filmmaker Michael Moore. The difference between them which works in Moore's favor, is that Moore makes no pretense of being anything other than an editorialist. He grabs facts that support his opinions, manipulates them to increase their emotional impact, and blithely ignores information that runs counter to his cause. Glassner does the same thing, but in the disappointing guise of social science.

There are interesting lessons to be learned from Culture of Fear, but they are not the ones Glassner intended. The fact that this book was released at all is a sad commentary on the state of the publishing industry. And the fact that it got remarkably good reviews from people who should know better is an even sadder comment on the state of thinking in America. The people who fall for this book are likely to be the same ones who fall for the over-hyped, irrational fears that are supposed to be its subject.

In the first 56 pages, the author advocates the gun restriction, gun bans, and gun confiscation. Each issue all boils down to the same problem for this author, guns. I am saddened to see that in the reviews present on the the store page up front and center, this fact is not presented. The author makes no real discussion of the legality, constitutionality, or feasability of his lust to rid the world of firearms, just takes his pot-shots and runs.

This might have been a good book before Sept. 11, but now it completely lost sense because it refers to events previous to the new American way of looking at terrorism and etc.
I'm very angry I bought the book at an airport store at $ 15.95, then read and what the author said didn't make much sense, then I discovered an hour later that the book was writen previously to Sept 11. They shouldn't sell books totally outdated like this. Now I can't even sell it because there are hundreds are less than $5 dollars. I won't go to ship the book for that amount LOL