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Book Review

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Barbara Ehrenreich, Bright-sided

  • 2011
  • | Publisher: Macmillan Audio

One of our most astute critics exposes some inconvenient truths

From overcoming cancer to getting a parking space, positive thinking, claims Barbara Ehrenreich, has become our primary strategy for dealing with adversity. This is not a good thing. In Bright-sided, Ehrenreich makes her mordant, comically ironic case that the infiltration of positive thinking into Americans’ daily lives has turned us into a nation detached from reality. As with her previous successful books, like Nickel and Dimed and Dancing in the Streets, Ehrenreich here makes her argument personal, starting the book with her firsthand experience as a breast cancer patient. Ehrenreich then delves into the history of positive thinking, uncovering gems like Napoleon Hill’s Depression-era book Think and Grow Rich!, which she aptly compares to the Oprah-endorsed snake oil The Secret. She also greatly bolsters her case by drawing from Donald Meyer’s 1965 book, The Positive Thinkers, still one of the best books on America’s propensity to optimism.

But Bright-sided is not simply a study of positive thinking in America: throughout the book, Ehrenreich makes a passionate argument that unflinching optimism played a major role in two of the biggest American debacles of the 21st century – the Iraq War and the housing bubble – and she argues that it’s still ruining American businesses, both by creating the cult of the CEO and by walling off said CEOs from reality. Ultimately, in Ehrenreich’s telling, positive thinking is a mechanism of population control endorsed by those in power whom it benefits, while leaving the rest of us with serious messes to clean up. While this seductive thesis doesn’t have all the explanatory power Ehrenreich wants to give it, there is a whole lot of truth here. Ehrenreich has certainly uncovered a powerful clue to the American psyche, and her reality check is something we can certainly benefit from. With Bright-sided one of our most astute, honest critics again exposes some inconvenient truths about how we live – here’s hoping people will listen.

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