PLAGUES OF THE MIND

What They're Saying...

"Bruce Thornton has a mind as sharp as Occam's Razor. In this shrewd and vigorously argued book, he shows how reason, truth, and objectivity have been put in jeopardy by the trendy commitments of our politically correct age. He flays the sentimentality and wishful thinking and simple malice of an intellectual elite committed to reconfiguring the world in its image. Plagues of the Mind is strong medicine, but a sure cure."
— Peter Collier, co-author, Destructive Generation

"Thornton outlines in vigorous, highly entertaining detail how a number of pseudoscientific hoaxes including the supposed prevalence of goddess-worship in prehistoric Europe have become important factors in intellectual life, despite having their origins more in wish-fulfillment than genuine scholarship."
— National Review

"[A] collection consisting of cogent remarks and prescient essays."
— The Bookwatch

"Plagues of the Mind is a worthwhile book that warns of a spreading disease that medical science cannot treat—the inability to think clearly."
— Ideas on Liberty

"Thornton's critique will not convince those who cannot be convinced, but for fair-minded historically rooted people, this volume is a much-needed antidote to the foolishness that reigns in most of our universities. Plagues, we must remember, are not to be taken lightly; they are deadly dangerous. This one is too."
— Calvin Theological Journal

"Thornton presents a very thought-provoking book…[T]he depth and breadth of his arguments provide much fodder for serious reflection on the current state of many of our society's viewpoints and behaviors."
— The Tampa Tribune Times

"This book is a major feat of both intellectual history and contemporary social analysis. Bruce Thornton provides a devastating account of atrocities against reason made by multiculturalists, New Age feminists and radical environmentalists. In doing so, he demonstrates an impressive depth of both scholarship and insight into the current condition of Western culture."
— Keith Windschuttle, author, The Killing of History

"In Plagues of the Mind, classicist Bruce Thornton strips away the false knowledge spawned by the Information Age, from Al Gore's eco-ignorance to the history of scalping, and leaves the reader with a taste of the examined life that Socrates thought the only life worth living."
— E. Christian Kopff, author, The Devil Knows Latin

"Thornton's exposition is complex, yet as he draws the thoughts and interpretations of an impressive array of social critics into his grand intellectual-historical argument, his prose never becomes obscure, though Al Gore, Vine Deloria, Carol Christ, and other targets of his criticism have reason to wish it had."
— Booklist

"...Plagues of the Mind should make people question their unquestioned beliefs-and this is as true for knee-jerk liberals as it is for overly smug conservatives."
— The Providence Sunday Journal

"Thornton does not mince words and he is not taking any intellectual prisoners"
— Foreword

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