If three stars equals 'average', then this deserves less
Before I begin, allow me to first state that I am a HUGE Christina Hoff Sommers fan. I think she is a superb American intellectual with an original and sharp mind. I have read two of her previous works 'Boys' (*****) and 'Who Stole?' (****). Sadly, this however, is not in the same league and so I urge those with an enquiring mind to check out her two previous books.
On to the review. Why is this book SO bad (because it is VERY disappointingly so). Well perhaps because this time Dr. hoff Sommers was joined by a co-author, Sally Satel. With the addition of another writer to negotiate with, maybe it is difficult to unite and find a common 'voice' (that's a feminist joke...), anyway, unless they actually designate chapters according to their relevant area of expertise, I fear the idea of 'casually' co-authoring can never really function and be successful, because it never achieves any kind of cohesion. In this instance they just don't articulate their conjecture very well, as if they couldn't agree.
In addition to and stemming from this major point is the fact that this text is a MESS. It sincerely lacks unity and cohesion. If you flipped through my copy, you would see 'transition' written numerous times in red pen along with 'tenuous', 'dubious' and 'define terms'. I really cannot state that enough. I would even argue that chapter two 'Esteem Thyself', should have been the opening chapter. This really reads more like a mid to late draft of an undergraduate thesis, than a book written by two very intelligent and (supposedly experienced) authors. I am not sure who (if anyone) actually edited this book, but they did a stunningly poor job and on their shoulders too, should lay some of the blame.
Another very serious issue which also arises from the previous points is that there is an acute lack of a strong central thesis to this work. Surely they set out with some hypothesis that read something akin to;
"Therapism is ruining America and Americans. It is diminishing the American spirit and causing the nation to become mentally weak and dysfunctional. This treatise sets out to examine and define the term 'therapism', its origins and root and how it plays an ever-increasing role in post-war American society. We aim to show that the shift from self-reliance to therapism is a major cause in many of the social ills currently plaguing contemporary society, and furthermore we will also show how the current therapist boom is both costly invasive and ineffectual. We shall do this by..." etc. By not having this central structure the arguments get VERY cloudy and swerve severely off course, getting lost altogether by about chapter four.
Dr. Hoff Sommers' usually answers her critics with both the quality and depth of her arguments and by her immense bibliography and extensive footnotes - although she might write in 'popular' themes, don't be fooled, she is a true scholar. In this text too, there are about eighty pages of (foot)notes, and yet despite this, despite the fact this work wants to appear scholarly, it just isn't. It just doesn't reach the bar, either philosophically or intellectually. Even with these notes, the arguments are not persuasive, and furthermore it is DULL, incredibly dull and very, very un-engaging. Despite the pages of references I can't help repeating myself to state that it reads like a very amateurish pseudo-intellectually 'told-you-so'. In fact, despite all the footnotes, I marked numerous pages with the correction 'citation?'. There were numerous banal or inflammatory statements that were pure conjecture masquerading as the Truth that carried no citation; p45, p46, p81 and p132 to name but four.
In addition to the comments above, one very amateurish point is the fact the text is littered with poorly or ill-chosen words, incorrect grammar and spelling mistakes. Add to this Sommers and Satel's bizarre use of ill-chosen personal pronouns. I am not a member of the 'grammar police', but in this age of enlightened relations I feel we can dispense with the gender pronouns: 'he' or 'she' in favour of 'they'. That is, unless, there is some specific case to cite. That seems a reasonable request. Why then on the following pages do the authors correlate the male pronoun with anti-social behaviour or some negative undertaking: p86, p96, p97, p98, p101, p102, p103, p106, p107, p108, p109, p114... the list is endless and nearly all usage refers to negative actions. Of the two notable uses of female pronouns p108 and p134 both are used in a positive light. This is very amateurish journalism of the Bill O'Reilly or Ann Coulter variety and not something one expects to find in any text that wishes to be taken seriously. Likewise I don't expect the phrase 'Third World' (p175) to appear in any serious work. Basically I could go on and on with these minor errors, but I won't! What such elementary mistakes serve to accomplish is to dilute any strength the overall thesis might have had, tarnish any possible merit and ultimately render eighty pages of references utterly worthless.
I purchased this book, not because I am particularly interested in the subject, rather, because I am interested in the intellect of one of the authors (Hoff Sommers), that said I did imagine I would end up with a lot to think about and with all my mental faculty stimulated. As so many reviewers say 'I wanted to like this book', but ultimately that wasn't even enough. This book a just such an ill-conceived mess, a veritable mélange of half-truths, twisted citations and selective 'cropping' of the facts. It has no central pillar around which arguments are conceived and constructed. It lacks cohesion, depth, sparkle and interest. It is dull and uninspiring, poorly edited; grammatically and intellectually weak. My advice, seek and alternative text or wait for the next (revised) edition, when hopefully it will have lost an author (Satel) and gained a thorough edit.
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