# The Sky Is Falling: How Vampires, Zombies, Androids, and Superheroes Made America Great for Extremism - Hardcover

by **Peter Biskind** (Author)

**A _Sunday Times_ (London), Best Book of 2018**

"A thoughtful, entertaining, and occasionally profound critical study of the texts that entertain, move and, sometimes, shape us."  
\--**_The Spectator_ (London)**

"A bold, witty, and brilliantly argued analysis of the role pop culture has played in the rise of American extremism."  
\--**Ruth Reichl**

"You'll never look at your favorite movies and TV shows the same way again. And you shouldn't."  
\--**Steven Soderbergh**

A bestselling cultural journalist shows how pop culture prepared Americans to embrace extreme politics

Almost everything has been invoked to account for Trump's victory and the rise of the alt-right, from job loss to racism to demography--everything, that is, except popular culture. In _The Sky Is Falling_ bestselling cultural journalist Peter Biskind dives headlong into two decades of popular culture--from superhero franchises such as the _Dark Knight_, _X-Men_, and the _Avengers_ and series like _The Walking Dead_ and _Game of Thrones_ to thrillers like _Homeland_ and _24_\--and emerges to argue that these shows are saturated with the values that are currently animating our extreme politics.

Where once centrist institutions and their agents--cops and docs, soldiers and scientists, as well as educators, politicians, and experts of every stripe--were glorified by mainstream Hollywood, the heroes of today's movies and TV, whether far right or far left, have overthrown this quaint ideological consensus. Many of our shows dramatize extreme circumstances--an apocalypse of one sort or another--that require extreme behavior to deal with, behavior such as revenge, torture, lying, and even the vigilante violence traditionally discouraged in mainstream entertainment.

In this bold, provocative, and witty investigation, Biskind shows how extreme culture now calls the shots. It has become, in effect, the new mainstream.

### Author Biography

**Peter Biskind** is a contributing editor to _Vanity Fair_, a writer for _Esquire_, and the author of the classic bestsellers _Easy Riders, Raging Bulls_ and _Down and Dirty Pictures_. He lives in upstate New York.

**Number of Pages:** 256

**Dimensions:** 1.1 x 9.4 x 6.4 IN

**Publication Date:** September 11, 2018

## Details

- **Price:** 26.99 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

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