The Merchants of Fear: Why They Want Us to be Afraid
by By Catherwood, Christopher and DiVanna, Joseph
Category: Political Science , Political Ideologies , Democracy

Although George Bush and Dick Cheney appear on the cover of this book in obvious reference to their scare-mongering considering terrorism and the nonexistent threat of Iraq, Catherwood (a historian affiliated with Churchill College Cambridge and Homerton College in the UK) and DiVanna (a UK-based economist and business consultant) argue that fear is an underlying characteristic of the American culture that has always been present as a legitimized mechanism for government control and economic activity. They connect the post-9/11 era of fear to previous fear-creating events like McCarthyism, the launching of Sputnik, and the Cold War and examine the similar role played by the media in exploiting fear in each of these cases. They present evidence that the United States has been involved in a historical cycle in which fear is used to justify armed interventions at times when the economy is slumping and warn against the decay in the American social fabric that has resulted from this cycle. Finally, they look to the example of the rise and fall of the British Empire and other great powers to consider the possible trends in this continuing use of fear to promote political, military, and economic objectives. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)