Arming Americans to defend the truth from today’s war on facts

Disinformation. Trolling. Conspiracies. Social media pile-ons. Campus intolerance. On the surface, these recent additions to our daily vocabulary appear to have little in common. But together, they are driving an epistemic crisis: a multifront challenge to America’s ability to distinguish fact from fiction and elevate truth above falsehood.

In 2016, Russian trolls and bots nearly drowned the truth in a flood of fake news and conspiracy theories, and Donald Trump and his troll armies continued to do the same. Social media companies struggled to keep up with a flood of falsehoods and too often didn’t even seem to try. Experts and some public officials began wondering if society was losing its grip on truth itself. Meanwhile, another new phenomenon appeared: “cancel culture.” At the push of a button, those armed with a cellphone could gang up by the thousands on anyone who ran afoul of their sanctimony.

In this pathbreaking book, Jonathan Rauch reaches back to the parallel eighteenth-century developments of liberal democracy and science to explain what he calls the “Constitution of Knowledge”–our social system for turning disagreement into truth.

By explicating the Constitution of Knowledge and probing the war on reality, Rauch arms defenders of truth with a clearer understanding of what they must protect, why they must do so–and how they can do it.

This book is a sweeping and readable description of how every American can help defend objective truth and free inquiry from threats as far away as Russia and as close as the cellphone.

“Robert Fass proves the perfect guide to exploring these concepts of age and happiness. Presenting the author’s personal journey, and his research and interviews, Robert keeps listeners engaged and tuned in to this fascinating study.” — AudioFile Magazine

This audiobook will change your life by showing you how life changes.

Why does happiness tend to get harder in your 40s? Why do you feel in a slump when you’re successful? Where does this malaise come from? And, most importantly, will it ever end?

Drawing on cutting-edge research, award-winning journalist Jonathan Rauch answers all these questions. He shows that from our 20s into our 40s, happiness follows a U-shaped trajectory, a “happiness curve,” declining from the optimism of youth into what’s often a long, low slump in middle age, before starting to rise again in our 50s.

This isn’t a midlife crisis, though. Rauch reveals that this slump is instead a natural stage of life–and an essential one. By shifting priorities away from competition and toward compassion, it equips you with new tools for wisdom and gratitude to win the third period of life.

And Rauch can testify to this personally because it was his own slump, despite acclaim as a journalist and commentator that compelled him to investigate the happiness curve. His own story and the stories of many others from all walks of life–from a steelworker and a limo driver to a telecoms executive and a philanthropist–show how the ordeal of midlife malaise reboots our values and even our brains for a rebirth of gratitude.

Full of insights and data and featuring many ways to endure the slump and avoid its perils and traps, The Happiness Curve doesn’t just show listeners the dark forest of midlife, it helps them find a path through the trees. It also shows how we can–and why we must–do more to help each other through the woods.

Praise for The Happiness Curve:

“The Happiness Curve delivers on the promise of its title, with wise insights and practices to help you become the best you can be. Leave the midlife slump. Enter into an encore adulthood of powerful purpose.” — Richard Leider, international bestselling author of The Power of Purpose, Repacking your Bags, and Life Reimagined

“Do you wish to understand the arc of your life? And why you are likely to end up happier than you are right now? If so, The Happiness Curve is the best place to start. And I write this as someone who can vouch that the upper part of the happiness life curve is very glorious indeed.” — Tyler Cowan, New York Times bestselling author of The Complacent Class and The Great Stagnation