{"product_id":"how-we-got-here-melville-plus-nietzsche-divided-by-the-square-root-of-allan-bloom-times-zizek-squared-equals-bannon","title":"How We Got Here: Melville Plus Nietzsche Divided by the Square Root of (Allan) Bloom Times Žižek (Squared) Equals Bannon","description":"\u003cp\u003eKellyanne Conway, Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Q-Anon, Fox News, etc., etc., etc. have kidnapped the last century of intellectual thought and philosophical investigation: poststructuralism, quantum physics, deconstruction, the current \"crisis\" in \"nonfiction\"-journalism- media-\"truthiness.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf the perceiver, by his very presence, alters what's perceived, Steve Bannon, Vladimir Putin, Vladislav Surkov (performance-artist-turned-Putin-strategist), et al. have quite consciously created—are all still quite consciously creating on a day-by-day basis—a universe in which nothing is true and therefore public discourse is, in effect, over. Dominion Voting Systems was founded to rig elections for Hugo Chavez; Italian space lasers modified voting machine data; the FBI staged the January 6 attack: this is a strategy that goes back at least as far as Dostoevsky's underground man. God is dead, so everything is permitted. Or is it?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eHow We Got Here\u003c\/em\u003e - provocative, accessible, persuasive, and addictive - is a crucial intervention in which David Shields argues that Melville plus Nietzsche divided by the square root of (Allan) Bloom times Žižek (squared) equals Bannon.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDavid Shields\u003c\/strong\u003e is the internationally bestselling author of twenty-five books, including \u003cem\u003eReality Hunger\u003c\/em\u003e (which, in 2020, Lit Hub named one of the most important books of the past decade), T\u003cem\u003ehe Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead \u003c\/em\u003e(\u003cem\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/em\u003e bestseller), \u003cem\u003eBlack Planet: Facing Race During an NBA Season\u003c\/em\u003e (finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and PEN USA Award), \u003cem\u003eRemote: Reflections on Life in the Shadow of Celebrity\u003c\/em\u003e (PEN\/Revson Award), and \u003cem\u003eOther People: Takes \u0026amp; Mistakes\u003c\/em\u003e (\u003cem\u003eNYTBR\u003c\/em\u003e Editors' Choice). \u003cem\u003eThe Very Last Interview\u003c\/em\u003e was published by New York Review Books in 2022.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, two NEA fellowships, and a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship, Shields—a senior contributing editor of \u003cem\u003eConjunctions\u003c\/em\u003e—has published essays and stories in \u003cem\u003eNew York Times Magazine, Harper's, Esquire, Yale Review, Salon, Slate, Tin House, A Public Space, McSweeney's, Believer, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Review of Books\u003c\/em\u003e, and \u003cem\u003eBest American Essays.\u003c\/em\u003e His work has been translated into two dozen languages.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe film adaptation of \u003cem\u003eI Think You're Totally Wrong: A Quarrel,\u003c\/em\u003e which Shields co-wrote and co-stars in, was released in 2017 and is now available as a DVD on Prime Video.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShields wrote, produced, and directed\u003cem\u003e Lynch: A History\u003c\/em\u003e, a 2019 documentary about Marshawn Lynch's use of silence, echo, and mimicry as key tools of resistance (streaming on Prime, Peacock, AMC, Sundance, Apple, and many other platforms).\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eI'll Show You Mine\u003c\/em\u003e, a feature film that Shields co-wrote and was produced by Mark and Jay Duplass, was released in 2023 and is now available on Prime and several other platforms.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA new film,\u003cem\u003e How We Got Here\u003c\/em\u003e, which Shields wrote and directed and which argues that Melville plus Nietzsche divided by the square root of (Allan) Bloom times Žižek (squared) equals Bannon, is streaming now on Prime and several other platforms; the companion volume is forthcoming in September 2024.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"David Shields's genius for deploying the words of others to create wholly original essays is on brilliant display. The connective tissue of his comments is key, guiding us as we jump from Socrates to Luther to Melville to Nietzsche, all the way to Tucker Carlson and Trump. Both erudite and accessible, classical and pop, \u003cem\u003eHow We Got Here\u003c\/em\u003e stitches together the threads of thought that have landed us in the nihilistic abyss of today. Illuminating.'\" - \u003cstrong\u003eMichael Greenberg\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"I'm grateful for this brilliant book, which sagely counterposes the massive irony of twentieth-century philosophy with the way it's been put to use. Now that we know we're here, the next question is how we get out of here.\" - \u003cstrong\u003eCharles Baxter\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"David Shields has written another sneakily essential book. This one is a murder mystery. Truth is dead, and Shields is the forensic detective on the case. He's got a notebook full of clues and no end of suspects. The question is, can he get a conviction?\" - \u003cstrong\u003eNicholas Carr\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"A diagram of the origins and direction of our current intellectual quagmire. Kafka wanted to read only books that were on axe to break the frozen sea within us. Shields's book is an axe for the frozen sea that surrounds us.\" - \u003cstrong\u003eStephen Marche\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"I love this provocative, unsettling book, which is both prose poem and polemic. In the originality of its form, it enacts the very anxiety about language, and how it's deployed, that it takes as its subject.\" - \u003cstrong\u003eVauhini Vara\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c!----\u003e","brand":"Itasca Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54526377263379,"sku":"9798990159136","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0948\/3521\/2563\/files\/9798990159136ita.jpg?v=1785852123","url":"https:\/\/danuc.net\/products\/how-we-got-here-melville-plus-nietzsche-divided-by-the-square-root-of-allan-bloom-times-zizek-squared-equals-bannon","provider":"Danu's Wardrobe","version":"1.0","type":"link"}