The Death of Expertise

"Excellent" The Washington Post "Nichols' perspective is an essentia I one if we are to begin digging ourselves out of the hole we find ourselves in." - National Public Radio "A sweeping indictment of the deliberate, widespread and ultimately self-destructive devaluing of knowledge in America." - Politico "Buy this book. And read it. Regularly." - Physics World "Timely...useful...in providing an overview of just how we arrived at this distressing state of affairs." - The New York Times "This may sound like a rant you have heard before, but Nichols has a senne of humour and chooses his examples well. His ange is a lot more attractive than the standard condescension." - Financial Times "A genial guide through the wilderness of ignorance." - KIRKUS Technology and increasing levels of education expose people to more information than ever before. These gains, however, also fuel a surge in narcissistic and misguided intellectual egalitarianism that derails debates on numerous issues. With only a quick trip through WebMD or Wikipedia, average citizens believe themselves to be as informed as doctors and diplomats. All voices demand to be taken with equal seriousness, and any claim to the contrary is dismissed as elitism. The Death of Expertise shows how this rejection of experts developed: the openness of the internet, the emergence of a customer satisfaction mode) in higher education, and the transformation of the news industry into a 24-hour entertainment machine. Paradoxically, greater democratic dissemination of information, rather than producing an educated public, has instead created an army of ill-informed, angry citizens who denounce intellectual achievement. Now updated with. a new foreword that explains how all of these related issues came to a head in the wake of Donald Trump's election. Tom Nichols is Professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College, an Adjunct Professor at the Harvard Extension School, and a former aide in the U.S. Senate.