
Lying in State
Why Presidents Lie -- And Why Trump Is Worse
Eric Alterman(Author)
Basic Books (Publisher)
Published on 13. August 2020
Book
Hardback
416 pages
978-1-5416-1682-0 (ISBN)
Description
If there's one thing we know about our current president, it's that he lies. Donald Trump's lies are so ubiquitous, so incessant, and so habitual that they have become inescapable -- from his false claims about the size of his inauguration crowd to his whole cloth invention of a terrorist attack in Sweden to his assertion that Democrats are planning to give free cars to undocumented immigrants. But while he may lie more frequently and brazenly than any other American president, he is certainly not the first to mislead the public.
With Lying in State, bestselling historian and commentator Eric Alterman asks how we ended up with such a pathologically dishonest commander in chief -- and what consequences his serial mendacity might have for the future. To answer these questions, Alterman explores the long history of presidential lying, showing that from early on, the United States has persistently expanded its power and hegemony on the basis of presidential lies. Over time, these deceptions have had a cumulative and pernicious effect: each lie a president tells makes it easier and more acceptable for subsequent presidents to lie. Worse still, the media have largely abandoned their responsibility as referees of news and information, uncritically repeating presidential lies and failing to issue corrections even after lies are revealed. Donald Trump, then, represents not an aberration but the culmination of an age-old trend.
Full of vivid historical examples and trenchant analysis, Lying in State is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how we arrived in this age of alternative facts.
With Lying in State, bestselling historian and commentator Eric Alterman asks how we ended up with such a pathologically dishonest commander in chief -- and what consequences his serial mendacity might have for the future. To answer these questions, Alterman explores the long history of presidential lying, showing that from early on, the United States has persistently expanded its power and hegemony on the basis of presidential lies. Over time, these deceptions have had a cumulative and pernicious effect: each lie a president tells makes it easier and more acceptable for subsequent presidents to lie. Worse still, the media have largely abandoned their responsibility as referees of news and information, uncritically repeating presidential lies and failing to issue corrections even after lies are revealed. Donald Trump, then, represents not an aberration but the culmination of an age-old trend.
Full of vivid historical examples and trenchant analysis, Lying in State is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how we arrived in this age of alternative facts.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 241 mm
Width: 159 mm
Thickness: 44 mm
Weight
648 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5416-1682-0 (9781541616820)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
08/2020
Basic Books
€13.99
Available for download
Person
Eric Alterman is a distinguished professor of English at CUNY Brooklyn College and holds a PhD in history from Stanford University. A columnist for the Nation, he is the author of ten previous titles, including the New York Times bestseller What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News. He lives in New York.