The Books canon

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Every book chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
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2 volumes
SortEditorial Year Title
Subject·Television✕clear
Nonfiction · Cultural criticism

Amusing Ourselves to Death

Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
Neil Postman
1985 · 184 pages

Orwell feared censors, Postman writes, but Huxley feared an audience too amused to care. Television has turned news and politics into show business, and every argument about screens since has borrowed his terms.

★ 6.8
Nonfiction · Sociology

On Television

Pierre Bourdieu
1996 · 104 pages

Television censors without a censor, Bourdieu argues: the clock and the ratings guarantee that only fast thinkers trading in received ideas can speak, and journalism drags politics and scholarship down with it.

★ 5.7