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A review by bootman
The Ideas Industry: How Pessimists, Partisans, and Plutocrats Are Transforming the Marketplace of Ideas by Daniel W. Drezner
5.0
At the time of completing this book, it was the 216th non-fiction book I've read for the year. I love to learn, I love to create, and I love sharing ideas, so when I heard about this book, it caught my attention. I don't think I'd ever classify myself as an "intellectual" as I think the label is a little pretentious, but if you like learning, thinking, and sharing ideas, I highly recommend this book from Daniel Drezner. I first learned about this book from the amazing book Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridharadas.
The book covers a wide range of subjects from academics sharing ideas and how it's changed over the years. How being a "thought leader" has become a lucrative business even if you aren't contributing any new ideas to what Drezner calls "the marketplace of ideas." But one of my favorite chapters came towards the end when Drezner discussed the challenges of sharing ideas in the age of social media. The Ideas Industry is extremely thought-provoking, and it made me want to read more books in this realm if I can find some.
2nd read:
I wanted to give this book another read because I’ve been noticing how many “thought leaders” and “public intellectuals” there are out there. Talk about an awesome job, right? Well, this book is still great, but it focuses more on the academic side of things. Drezener goes through the history of the ideas industry and explains how things go sideways when academics are chasing the money as well as when they use bad data or just put out bad ideas. This is a great book for taking a step back and realizing that not every person we’re holding up as a great thinker is infallible. One thing I realized while reading this book is that it could definitely use a second edition or a completely new book on the non-academic public intellectuals. We live in a time where people have created entire brands out of being “smart” while just saying really silly and polarizing things. Often times, they’re walk into conspiracy theory territory as well, but they gain fame, a following, and money from this, and it’s not really broken down and analyzed. But this book still holds up years later, and it’s a great read.
The book covers a wide range of subjects from academics sharing ideas and how it's changed over the years. How being a "thought leader" has become a lucrative business even if you aren't contributing any new ideas to what Drezner calls "the marketplace of ideas." But one of my favorite chapters came towards the end when Drezner discussed the challenges of sharing ideas in the age of social media. The Ideas Industry is extremely thought-provoking, and it made me want to read more books in this realm if I can find some.
2nd read:
I wanted to give this book another read because I’ve been noticing how many “thought leaders” and “public intellectuals” there are out there. Talk about an awesome job, right? Well, this book is still great, but it focuses more on the academic side of things. Drezener goes through the history of the ideas industry and explains how things go sideways when academics are chasing the money as well as when they use bad data or just put out bad ideas. This is a great book for taking a step back and realizing that not every person we’re holding up as a great thinker is infallible. One thing I realized while reading this book is that it could definitely use a second edition or a completely new book on the non-academic public intellectuals. We live in a time where people have created entire brands out of being “smart” while just saying really silly and polarizing things. Often times, they’re walk into conspiracy theory territory as well, but they gain fame, a following, and money from this, and it’s not really broken down and analyzed. But this book still holds up years later, and it’s a great read.