Post-Truth: Why We Have Reached Peak Bullshit and What We Can Do About It (Hardback)

So, to inject some perspective into the current debate, the purpose of this book is to provide a first-principles look at mendacity and nonsense, both in the post-truth era and – if I may coin a phrase – in the pre-post-truth period too… So my mission here is to try to set out why bullshit is so ubiquitous, why it sometimes ‘works and why it often goes too far. In short, my aim is to explain why bullshit has an appeal, and how we can get the best from the bullshit-ridden dialogue we have.

Low-level dishonesty is rife everywhere, in the form of exaggeration, selective use of facts, economy with the truth, careful drafting - from Trump and the Brexit debate to companies that tell us 'your call is important to us'. How did we get to a place where bullshit is not just rife but apparently so effective that it's become the communications strategy of our times?

This brilliantly insightful book steps inside the panoply of deception employed in all walks of life and assesses how it has come to this. It sets out the surprising logic which explains why bullshit is both pervasive and persistent. Why are company annual reports often nonsense? Why should you not trust estate agents? And above all, why has political campaigning become the art of stretching the truth? Drawing on behavioural science, economics, psychology and of course his knowledge of the media, Evan ends by providing readers with a tool-kit to handle the kinds of deceptions we encounter every day, and charts a route through the muddy waters of the post-truth age.

'A Malcolm Gladwell-style social psychology/behavioural economics primer' - Evening Standard

‘A rich and probing analysis of the use and misuse of the media’ - The Guardian