Wrath (eBook)

Anger now dominates American politics. It wasn't always so. "e;Happy Days Are Here Again"e; was FDR's campaign song in 1932. By contrast, candidate Kamala Harris's 2020 campaign song was Mary J. Blige's "e;Work That"e; ("e;Let 'em get mad / They gonna hate anyway"e;). Both the left and right now summon anger as the main way to motivate their supporters. Post-election, both sides became even more indignant. The left accuses the right of "e;insurrection."e; The right accuses the left of fraud. This is a book about how we got here-about how America changed from a nation that could be roused to anger but preferred self-control, to a nation permanently dialed to eleven. Peter W. Wood, an anthropologist, has rewritten his 2007 book, A Bee in the Mouth: Anger in America, which predicted the new era of political wrath. In his new book, he explains how American culture beginning in the 1950s made a performance art out of anger; how and why we brought anger into our music, movies, and personal lives; and how, having step by step relinquished our old inhibitions on feeling and expressing anger, we turned anger into a way of wielding political power. But the "e;angri-culture,"e; as he calls it, doesn't promise happy days again. It promises revenge. And a crisis that could destroy our republic.