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For the last third of the twentieth century, Neil Postman was one of America’s foremost social critics and education and communications theorists, and his ideas and accessibility won him an international following. An influential and revered teacher, he was a professor for more than forty years at New York University, where he founded the renowned Media Ecology program. Blessed with an unusually far-reaching mind, he authored more than twenty books, producing major works on education ( Teaching as a Subversive Activity , The End of Education ), childhood ( The Disappearance of Childhood ), language ( Crazy Talk, Stupid Talk ), news ( How to Watch TV News , with Steve Powers), and technology’s impact on culture ( Technopoly ). Amusing Ourselves to Death remains his most reverberating and widely read book, translated into more than a dozen languages. He was educated at the State University of New York at Fredonia and Columbia University. He died in October 2003 at the age of seventy-two.
Andrew Postman, Neil’s son, is the author of five books, including the novel Now I Know Everything . For several years he was a monthly columnist for Glamour and his work has appeared in The New York Times , The Washington Post , and New York Magazine , among numerous publications.
PENGUIN BOOKS
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
First published in the United States of America by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 1985
Published in Penguin Books 1986
This edition with an introduction by Andrew Postman published 2006
Copyright © 1985 by Neil Postman
Introduction copyright © 2005 by Andrew Postman
Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to The New York Times Company for permission to reprint from “Combining TV, Books, Computers” by Edward Fiske, which appeared in the August 7, 1984, issue of The New York Times . Copyright © 1984 by The New York Times Company.
A section of this book was supported by a commission from the Annenberg Scholars Program, Annenberg School of Communications, University of Southern California. Specifically, portions of chapters six and seven formed part of a paper delivered at the Scholars Conference, “Creating Meaning: Literacies of our Time,” February 1984.
ISBN 9781101042625 (ebook)
the library of congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows :
Postman, Neil.
Amusing ourselves to death.
Bibliography: p. 173.
Includes index.
1. Mass Media—Influence. I. Title.
P94.P63 1986 302.2’34 86-9513
ISBN 9780143036531 (hardcover)
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