Post Truth

Available from 25th May 2017

Why we have reached Peak Bullshit and what we can do about it

Lies and deception, flannel and waffle, distracting decoration or flamboyance, artifice and insincerity, pure nonsense and gibberish: bullshit is everywhere you look. And never has there been more concern about it.

From President Trump to the Brexit debate, we hear constant talk of falsehoods and fake news, and appeals to alternative facts. So why has bullshit apparently become the communications strategy of our time?

This brilliantly insightful book steps inside the panoply of deception and spin employed not just in recent politics, but in all walks of life, to explain why mendacity and nonsense are both pervasive and persistent.

From the verbiage in company annual reports, to excitable headlines promising a new cure for cancer, to canned laughter on TV, and not forgetting of course political spin, low level dishonesty is rife. Every day, we encounter exaggeration, euphemism, economy with the truth, carefully selected words designed to mislead without actually lying, and sometimes, pure nonsense.

Drawing on behavioural science, economics, psychology and his knowledge of the media, Evan sets out to explore the surprising logic of the bullshit we encounter. He 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.