![BIG LIES: from Socrates to Social Media](http://img.images-bn.com/static/redesign/srcs/images/grey-box.png?v11.9.4)
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Overview
NAMED ONE OF KIRKUS' BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2022
PW HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE 2022
In his new book for young readers Mark Kurlansky’s lens is the art of the “BIG LIE”, a term coined by Adolf Hitler. Kurlansky has written Big Lies: From Socrates to Social Media for the next stewards of our world. It is not only a history-of, but a how-to manual for seeing through Big Lies and thinking critically.
Big lies are told by governments, politicians, and corporations to avoid responsibility, cast blame on the innocent, win elections, disguise intent, create chaos, and gain power and wealth. Big lies are as old as civilization. They corrupt public understanding and discourse, turn science upside down, and reinvent history. They prevent humanity from addressing critical challenges. They perpetuate injustices. They destabilize the world.The modern age has provided ever-more-effective ways of spreading lies, but it has also given us the scientific method, which is the most effective tool for finding what is true. In the book’s final chapter, Kurlansky reveals ways to deconstruct an allegation. A scientific theory has to be testable, and so does an allegation.
BIG LIES soars across history: alighting on the “noble lies” of Socrates and Plato; Nero blaming Christians for the burning of Rome; the great injustices of the Middle Ages; the big lies of Stalin and Hitler and their terrible consequences; the reckless lies of contemporary demagogues, which are amplified through social media; lies against women and Jews are two examples in the long history of “othering” the vulnerable for personal gain; up to the equal-opportunity spotlight in America.
“Belief is a choice,” Kurlansky writes, “and honesty begins in each of us. A lack of caring what is true or false is the undoing of democracy. The alternative to truth is a corrupt state in which the loudest voices and most seductive lies confer power and wealth on grifters and oligarchs. We cannot achieve a healthy planet for all the world’s people if we do not keep asking what is true.”
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780884489139 |
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Publisher: | Tilbury House Publishers |
Publication date: | 08/08/2023 |
Pages: | 320 |
Sales rank: | 495,217 |
Product dimensions: | 7.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d) |
Age Range: | 12 - 18 Years |
About the Author
![About The Author](http://img.images-bn.com/static/redesign/srcs/images/grey-box.png?v11.9.4)
Eric Zelz is a designer, illustrator, and educator whose work has been recognized by organizations including the Society of Environmental Journalists and the Society of News Design. His illustrations for three Tilbury House picture books (Pass the Pandowdy, Please; Read This Book If You Don’t Want a Story; and My Monster Moofy) have received awards and starred reviews. See more at ericzelz.com.
Hometown:
New York, NYDate of Birth:
December 7, 1948Place of Birth:
Hartford, CTEducation:
Butler University, B.A. in Theater, 1970Read an Excerpt
Entreaty
“Truth tickles everyone’s nostrils. The question is, how’s it to be pulled from the heap? ” —Isaac Babel, “My First Goose” (a story in Red Cavalry, 1926)
This book is full of ideas, facts, and opinions. It would be easy just to read and believe it, but I ask you instead to consider as you read and to decide for yourself what to believe. Francis Bacon, a pioneer of the scientific method, wrote in 1612, “Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.”
That is how we struggle toward the truth, and it is that struggle that keeps the world from descending into chaos.
While it is often easy to spot a lie, it is harder to know what is true. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, a still-admired nineteenth-century German philosopher, maintained that there is always an absolute truth, but it is not always possible to know it. That may be so, but the search for truth must be never-ending. We cannot achieve a well-ordered, healthy society for all the world’s people if we do not keep asking what is true. Often the question is why so many people choose to believe obvious lies. No lie becomes a big lie—a lie that undermines freedom, humanity, and the common good—without willing believers. Belief is a choice, and honesty begins in each of us. It is all too human to prefer an attractive lie to an inconvenient truth requiring difficult changes. When a lie provides comfort, consolation, excuses, or permission to do what you’d like to do anyway, who wouldn’t prefer it? It is harder to question everything, but democracy depends on moral courage, independent thinking, and fair-mindedness. A lack of caring what is true or false is the undoing of democracy. Hannah Arendt, who fled Hitler’s Germany and became one of the great philosophers of the twentieth century, wrote in Origins of Totalitarianism, “The ideal subject of totalitarianism is not the convinced Nazi, or the dedicated communist, but the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”
I hope that you will keep asking yourself what is true as you read this book and live your life.
Table of Contents
Entreaty
1. Masked Revelers in a Carnival of Lies From Russia with Love, Part 1 2. The Enlightenment and the Unenlightened From Russia with Love, Part 2 3. Denial: The Short Way around Science From Russia with Love, Part 3 4. Favorite Lies About Women From Russia with Love, Part 4 5. A Snowball in France: The Blame Game From Russia with Love, Part 5 6. Soviet Mathematics: 2 + 2 = 5 7. The Truth about American Truth 8. Big Dictators and Big Lies The Prince of Real Estate, Part 1 9. Photographic Lies The Prince of Real Estate, Part 2 10. Saving Children: A Best-Loved Lie The Prince of Real Estate, Part 3 11. The Golden Lasso of Truth The Prince of Real Estate, Part 4Sources Index Acknowledgments