How did everything get so dumb?.. How did we become hostages to idiocy?.. What must we do to be freed from a captor whose ransom note simply reads, `D`oh`?.. The deteriorating quality of our public debate & the dwindling of common sense in media, politics & culture can drive you to despair & rage. It certainly drove writers Helen Razer & Bernard Keane to a desperate act: befriending each other for long enough to write a book... Join forces with these uneasy allies to fight against a world that has lost its reason. Explore what`s behind the remorseless spread of idiocy, & why there`s just so much damn Stupid around you... Stupid isn`t just ignorance; it`s not just laziness. Worse than the absence of thought, Stupid is a virus that drains our productivity & leaves us sick & diminished. & Stupid has a long, complex & terrible past, one we need to understand in order to defeat it...A Short History of Stupid traces the origins of this maddening ill, examining the different ways in which we`ve been afflicted over the last three thousand years. It damns those who have spread Stupid & celebrates the brave few who resisted. It shows how Stupid tightens the grubby grip of the foolish around our throats... Hilarious, smart, unpleasant, infuriating & rude, A Short History of Stupid is at once a provocation & a comfort. It will spark debate, soothe the terminally frustrated & outrage the righteously Stupid. It is a book whose Stupid time has come.