I haven't finished reading it yet but I absolutely will. The stories are written with much irony as they reveal the wrong-way workings of our government, institutions, culture and minds. The insights are wonderful, help to define and explain why life doesn't work the way it should/used to. You can pick this book up and put it down in whatever increments you like but you won't put it away until you're sure you didn't miss anything. Then you'll GIVE it away. I recommend it.

This is a humorous yet depressing look at the state of 21st century American society. The author theorizes that the convoluted inner workings of Washington has left the public at large clinging to absurd assumptions about just why the world has turned against them. Instead of attempting to fix the broken political process, the people portrayed throughout the book turn to ridiculous ideas of conspiracies and demonic presences around every corner.

Although a great read, the book at times resembles more of a series of rambling blog posts than a critical analysis. By the end of the book we understand more personally about the people encountered than we do about what brings them to their distorted viewpoints.

If you want to try and understand the mind of a radical fundamentalist Christian or someone who thinks 911 was an "inside job" then this is the book for you. Perhaps we all should because this is increasingly becoming the face of the average American.

I wish I had not wasted my money on this book. His description of Congress is no doubt on target. As was his endless tales of Hagee's church in Texas and the various bible study classes he attended. But boring, on and on he goes, saying almost nothing really. He saves his most vitriolic statements for the 911 Truthers. He seems messianic in his crusade against them. What is that? I thru the book out 3/4 thru.

Matt Tabbi's book The Great Derangement was a fascinating read. Under a false identity, Tabbi spent time with Matthew Hagee's Cornerstone Church, slowly going through the indocrination process. He also spent some time with a 9/11 conspiracy group, who believe the US government is responsible, directly or indirectly, for the attacks. He also intersperses chapters on governmental procedures and happenings between his church and conspiracy saga.

His premise is basically that in our society, many people have chosen to kind of check out and embrace some of these out there kind of organizations or any kind of group or feedback that supports their own point of view. The stories he tells of the people he meets in these organizations are at the same time sad, frustrating, funny, and uplifting. At times, Tabbi seems to be mocking the people involved, but them he'll find himself sympathizing with them as well. I like the fact that he doesn't come off as perfect in the book himself, or like a detached anthropologist studying people as if they were scientific specimens. The fact that he seems like a jerk sometimes underscores how all of us feel somewhat alienated from each other in this modern society.

The chapters on governmental procedure, namely his description of how unrelated items get added to bills really was eye-opening and more than a little frightening. To see that there really isn't much of a difference between the parties, other than their lobbyist loyalties was somewhat discouraging as well.

Highly recommended if you're looking for something to think about.

Great book written by a powerful writer. It is no wonder it hit the NY Times top ten as soon as it hit the shelves.
Rick O.

Super quick read because this book is well-written, well-edited, insightful, thought-provoking, and funny.

Taibbi juxtaposes the 9/11 Truth Movement with Jim Hagee's San Antonio Texas-based evangelical politico-religious cult (organized into cells like al-Qa'ida so that it can survive an attack) to illustrate the blue/red, liberal/conservative polarization of Americans manufactured by the media and political elite using the age-old technique of divide and conquer so that they can continue to use the U.S. government and political system for their self-aggrandizement and monopoly on power.

Taibbi also talks about the atomization of U.S. culture and society which is aided by the Internet and the degradation of the U.S. media into infotainment rather than news. Taibbi cannot help pointing out how uninformed many Americans are and how quick many Americans are to accept conspiracy theories (note -- most of the world readily accept conspiracy theories but often that can be explained by having grown up in cultures in which the government never tells the truth and cannot be trusted -- wait a minute that sound like what the U.S. government is or is becoming).

BUY THIS BOOK

An insightful, definitely provocative treatise on the current American psyche. Add in Matt's unique, somewhat gonzo-style, and it's a very entertaining read to boot.

The Great Derangement has the best tutorial I've seen on the actual workings of Congress. Chapter 2 describes in detail the processes of the Republican-controlled congress (prior to the 2006 elections), explaining in detail how bills are actually created and rammed through. Taibbi explains why it is that CSPAN2 is so mind-numbingly dull - an endless parade of house resolutions to name a post office or honor a dead chamber of commerce booster. The real work of the congress is done in the middle of the night (literally) in the offices of committee chairmen, energetically inserting and deleting provisions in legislation to satisfy the needs of their true constituents, the large corporations that donate so generously to the campaigns of those committee chairmen. This is Civics 101 as it was never taught in our public schools. Chapter 6 describes the same process at work now that the Democrats have a clear majority in Congress. Not much has changed. Later in the book, Taibbi describes a meeting between leaders of the peace movement with the new Democratic leadership - a meeting in which the topic of discussion was how to sell angry voters on the reason why the Democratic congress did absolutely nothing to end the Iraq war.

The premise of this book is that starting 20 or so years ago both government and the media abandoned their responsibilities. Government became unabashedly a government of the few against the interests of the many, and corporate controlled media simply stopped reporting the news, turning to trivialities and sleaze instead. This left a vacuum into which poured the phenomena of right-wing end-times fundamentalism and left-wing conspiracy theories. Both camps have enormous numbers of followers, and neither side is able to talk to the other.

Taibbi infiltrated the Cornerstone Baptist mega-church in San Antonia Texas - Pastor John Hagee's church. He dove right in and went through their training/indoctrination programs, attended weekly cell meetings and the weekly church services. The ideology preached at that church, as at most fundamentalist churches, is equal parts anti-liberal, anti-science, pro-Israel, and pure ignorance and prejudice throughout, with massive doses of demons, Satan, hell, and a vengeful wrathful Lord. It makes for entertaining, but scary, reading. Taibbi was pretty depressed by the end of that months-long experience.

He also spent considerable time with 9/11 Truthers - people who hold a variety of evidence-free beliefs about a vast corporate/government conspiracy to carry out and cover up the attacks of September 11, 2001. He characterizes this as a left-wing movement. I'm not so sure about that, since many of its proponents seem not to have ever been left-wing before they adopted the theories. But, whatever. The problem from Taibbi's perspective is that 36% of the US population believes in some part of the 9/11 conspiracy theories. A substantial part of the population, in other words, is willing to accept preposterous theories without evidence, because they are so convinced that every time they read a paper, see something on television, or read news on the internet, that they are being lied to. And they are right, for the most part.

In the end Taibbi sees some cause to think that the situation might be changing. Written at the end of 2007 he saw the campaigns of Ron Paul, John Edwards, and Barack Obama indications that people are starting to rebel in meaningful ways both from the 2-same-party system and from the us/them demonization represented by religious fundamentalism and conspriracy crackpotism. He points out that Obama is massively funded by the same corporate interests that fund the rest of the power elite, but believed that Obama's 'tone' represented a promise of change for the better. We'll see.

I wish that Christian evangelicals and conspiracy theorists could read this book. It provides a much-needed dose of reality. Sadly, as with most political books, he will be preaching mostly to a choir of like-minded realists.

As a fan of Matt Taibbe's columns in Rolling Stone and an Imus listener, I bought The Great Derangement following an Imus show when Matt was the guest. Taibbe is a great guest on Imus. Yet, the more I read of the book the more dismayed I became. It is nothing more than a journal, pretty much an unedited one at that. Moreover, the chapters are just fragments. there is no overriding theme. It's not just a bad book; it's a terrible book. Don't buy it.

Matt Taibbi's new book, "The Great Derangement", finds him traveling near and far to investigate behind-the-scenes looks at religion, Congress and more. His conversational style makes this a breezy and often fun read, but it is sometimes maddeningly uneven. Geared to an under thirty-five crowd, Taibbi scores well when he's most passionate about political figures such as George Bush and Mitt Romney, for instance. Always appearing where least expected, he's kind of America's "Where's Waldo".

The first half of the book is clearly more readable than the second...and much more fun. His chapter entitled "The Longest Three Days of My Life", in which he goes underground to turn religious fundamentalism on its head, is terrific. Spewing up demons is not part of most people's lives, but here, the author unveils a laugh-a-minute approach to cleansing the soul. When Taibbi uncovers the preposterous nature of the actions of this church, it's the northeast vs. Texas and Texas doesn't stand a chance! Had there been more chapters like this one, the book would have held together better. "The Great Derangement" shows promise, but Taibbi could have delivered more.

...but it suffered from sloppy editing (typos, grammatical and style errors) and also because the whole project never really has a finished sense of what it wants to be: reporting, gonzo-lite, a series of intertwined essays or a long magazine article. The changes in tone can be jarring and the cross cutting between the three stories Taibbi is telling would need a defter hand to fully create the effect he was looking for. This project is also fighting the incredibly short shelf life of political stories in a political season (For instance, he hints that the Ron Paul campaign could be carrying the new paradigm of "post-partisan" politics) A lot of these stars have obviously risen and fallen in the pause between composition and publishing.
That being said there are parts that are quite revealing and others just plain snarky fun. Just because his reach exceeds his grasp in this case is no reason not to read and enjoy his observations and the conclusions he ultimately implies.

I was disappointed in this book. I had heard Taibbi on the Imus Show, and I thought the book would have provided a more serious discussion of the societal impacts the decisions of the current administration have had. Instead it was mostly a running series of anecdotes loosely tied together. In fact, I often wondered how accurate some of them were, as they were often repeated in a manner much like you would tell someone a story months after an event where the only detail you could remember was the fact that you were there. In every case where he did start with a serious idea, I thought he failed to develop it. I did get a couple of things: as a society we are not voting 'for' anything; we pick our candidates based on what we are 'against'. Secondly, the common person in the religious right tunes out the political agenda being preached to them from the pulpit. Finally, Congress is all about politics--the real work is done in the hallways and behind closed doors. Wished I'd saved the money and checked the book out from the library.

While this is a smark-alecky, self-indulgent first try, it is revealing of the workings of government and of fundamentalist institutions. It's self-conscious narrative is hard to take seriously.

I read this book, and was continually laughing out lid at the absurdity of the sort of crap that is normal every day in America. However, I found myself nearly depressed at the end though, because while the author makes fun of these sort of mouthbreathing morons, the more I look around, the more I see. I guess it would be a lot funnier if there weren't so many of these idiots out there, and that they weren't in charge of stuff.

I first read Matt Taibbi's piece about Hagee's megachurch in the Rolling Stone magazine. I decided that I HAD to pick up his book ASAP.

The parts about the fundamentalist, World-Is-Ending-Tomorrow churches were well-written, insightful, and hilarious but sad at the same time.
The parts about the 9/11 Truth movement shed light on what could happen when a confused, ill-informed public is left to scramble for "facts" and make up theories to explain their disappointments in the American system.


I GOT that and I completely agree.

However--BE WARNED

Taibbi slips in and out of rants about political leaders, the rich and the kinds of vacations he imagines they take, sports, and other very random--and very BORING--topics.

I agree that he needed to show how the failing political system in America is contributing to people's sense of fear, ignorance, worry, regret, and shame--how its leading them to act "crazy"

but in his effort to show this he gets utterly boring and occasionally sways off topic


Saying that--he did A LOT of undercover field work in these megachurches and truther meetings--and I wish he would have reported more on THAT.


In the end, though, this book helped me put certain issues into perspective. But I'd just wait until more used copies come up and get it at a discount.

Matt Taibbi's book does an excellent job of portraying America honestly in our tremendously skewed post-9/11 world. Just as Alain Resnais' "Night and Fog" was the first film to capture Auschwitz after the Holocaust, Matt Taibbi documents a new and strange America that has gone unnoticed by the mainstream media (perhaps because it's a byproduct of it). Taibbi does all of this with humor, wit and bravery (I wouldn't set foot in a John Hagee mega-church if you paid me). Overall, it's poignant and hilarious and incredibly relevant to the America we live in.

I loved Matt on Bill Maher and thought the book would give me a clue about Hagee and his flock. It's hard for me to understand those folks and Matt cleared some of that up. Those were the best parts. I also learned things about Congress that didn't thrill me. What I really didn't like was his disgust with the 911 truthers. Aside from one nut that he talked about a little I thought he should have cut them some slack. There does appear to be evidence that they knew something was coming and let it happen. Mocking these folks for page after page for believing in this so strongly struck me as not funny. I hardly ever skip over pages, but this time I did.

The content of this book is obvious.

This book is well-written, funny, and irreverent. It is breezy, however, substantively. If you liked Al Franken's work, you'll enjoy this.

This guy could be on the rise if he keeps honing his skills.

What Taibbi does, is GET YOU Thinking!

So, to his critics, you too should THINK about what he writes.

He took on Thomas Friedman's neoliberal account of Globalization with candor, wit and a line of reasoning even the critics couldn't ignore ... one of the most widely read criticisms ever written.

His rebuttal inspired the book, "The World is Flat?" .. a critique of Friedman's tome to corporate globalization.

Don't want to think... don't read Taibbi.

Want to understand today's world, then DO read Taibbi and The World is Flat? by Aronica and Ramdoo (already adoptied by over 20 universities).

We do live in Interesting Times ... and we do need to understand what's going on.

Taibbi is an entertaining writer of magazine and website pieces, but he simply doesn't have enough to say to fill an entire book. We already know that religious fundamentalists are nuts, politicians are crooked, and Iraq is a fiasco. I didn't find anything new or enlightening here about any of these subjects. Also, you'd think the publisher would proofread the copy before printing a major hardcover book like this, or at least run a spellcheck, but apparently they didn't think it was important. My advice is to pick up the book at your local library if you're curious, but don't spend money on it.

Taibbi is an entertaining writer of magazine and website pieces, but he simply doesn't have enough to say to fill an entire book. We already know that religious fundamentalists are nuts, politicians are crooked, and Iraq is a fiasco. I didn't find anything new or enlightening here about any of these subjects. Also, you'd think a major publishing house would proofread the copy before publishing a major hardcover book like this, or at least run a spellcheck, but apparently they didn't think it was important. My advice is to pick up the book at your local library if you're curious, but don't spend money on it.

There were some highly entertaining parts of this book, but really this book had about 35 pages worth of reading. Taibi is good in Rolling Stone, but I think he needs to go back to the drawing board for entire books.

I would say don't buy it.

Fresh view regarding the world at large. You laugh, you cry, it becomes a part of you. It may be an eye opener for some, but for me as I read, I was more relieved someone else was seeing it all besides me. If I had to guess, from Tabbi's accounts, thats exactly why he wrote this book, as if to say "Is anyone else seeing this.."stuff"..besides me?" Lol. He brings out the good the bad and the ugly of America. Well done.

The book gives a great deal of detail on the insanity found in christian right megachurches. Christian Television can be just as frightening and funny as anything described in the book and anyone can(though not a believer) watch and think for themselves on the fare offered. I'm suprised people on the progressive side of things don't spend more time monitoring these lunatics. Its all in plain view and on display. The point of the book is you don't need massive conspiracies and secret cabals the rot is out there for anyone see on prime time television or newspapers (in the case of congressional corruption).

MIKE NEEDS TO RESEARCH MORE ABOUT 9/11 TRUTH BEFORE HE IS QUALIFIED TO MAKE AN INFORMED COMMENT. GOOGLE NWO AND 9/11 TRUTH. SEE THE DVD'S "TERRORSTORM"; "IN PLANE SIGHT"; "WHO KILLED JOHN O'NEIL"; ILLUMINATI I, II & III; AND MANY, MANY OTHERS. SOME ARE AVAILABLE HERE ON AMAZON, OTHERS ARE AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE & EBAY. SOME OF THE CONSPIRACY MATERIAL IS ABSURD, AS IS MATERIAL FOUND IN THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA, HOWEVER, DO NOT THROW OUT THE BABY WITH THE BATHWATER. THERE IS A WEALTH OF SANE, SOBERING MATERIAL AVAILABLE IN BOTH DVD AND IN BOOK FORM. PEACEOUT!

Previous reviewers must be related to, or friends of, the author. This book is ill-informed, under-reported, cynical, and childish. If I could have given it zero stars, I would have. The book is a complete zero.

I found this book to be a bit disturbing, I wasn't sure where Matt was going until the epilogue (which was very good and I agreed). What was disappointing to me was how harshly M dealt with the "9/11 truthseakers". I certainly understand most of them need no help in displaying themselves as cooks, but there are some very legitimate questions that need to be answered. I will not go into here but Matt seemed to focus on the most absurd and sensational 9/11 theories and then throw all the conspirators in one basket. Theories, even crazy ones, are mostly born out of a lack of information or odd coincidences, and are easy to ridicule just because of the nature of having to guess at all the missing info because people insist on impossible air tight explanations. Matt- the real conspiracies are what we see on the news and coming out of the white house.
As for his work with the christian end-timers, the sad thing is most christians allow these so called christian leaders to lead them to so many untruths it is'nt funny at all. It shouldn't take an atheist to point out the absurdity in christianity today in America. No one seems to search the scriptures for themselves. Matt proved his point all too well.
Personally-Im not a fan of Matt Tabbi,but like I said the epilogue alone was worth 3 stars.

I bought this book after reading the exerpt in Rolling Stone about the author's undercover immersion into the Hagee fundamentalist cult. I laughed myself sick and ordered it immediately.

Unfortunately, like most movie trailers, and exerpts published in periodicals, that chapter was the highlight of the book. I kept waiting for more of that sustained humor and bitting wit, but no other chapter came close. Thus, I was somewhat disappointed.

That said, Taibbi gives a good inside understanding of the inner workings of congress, the corruption that has become inherent in our system. His exposee on the 911 conspiracy theorist crazies, and cynical perspective of the Christian Zionist nut jobs and their pathetic flock is revealing and entertaining. Finally, he proffers how these desperate people and divergent groups of the far left and far right are actually a manifestation of American's disgust with, and powerlessness against, the deception and derangement that has become government.

I don't regret buying it, but if I had it to do all over again, I'd wait a few months and get it used at a deep discount.

i bought this for laughs and just plain meanness, but i was pleasantly surprised to find limited name calling and abundant compassion. taibbi truly goes soft here. he really gives the church a fair shake and explains why it is so appealing to so many. he doesn't pull any punches with the anti-environmentalist son of john hagee, though. He really touched on some good points during his trip to camp cuervo in baghdad. he was right about his military views and that the good things from the army are similar to the good things of the church. the church thing with laurie and janine was great and it reminded me of joe dirt telling his story to dennis miller. i want to know more and i need to find out if he ever spoke with laurie again. great book! of course, there are less serious moments like when he is about to "witness" at the mall and is standing outside the front door praying with his group. i cant give that one away. his description of the "way of the master" series was LOL funny. BTW, the left is comparibly insane to their counterparts on the right with the 911 thing. why do they get so fixated on that one anyway? why not fixate on the anthrax? you could actually get somewhere with that. this was awesome and easily his best work to date. buy it now, religious or not. it is truly for everyone(in my opinion).

Got this book Monday, May 5th. Finished it once ... going back again. Matt reveals the absurdity that has this country by the throat. As a former church pastor, the narrative on Matt's adventure with John Hagee's nut bunch was point-on. This book is laugh-out-loud funny but what it reveals is very sad. This book should be required reading in every freshman high school and college civics/polysci course. It's interesting and ironic that Matt Taibbi, Don Imus, Bill Maher, and a very few others may save us from ourselves yet. Thanks guys ... from our kids ... and theirs.