Trained relentlessly to work and consume, we make daily lifestyle decisions that promote corporate profits more than our own well-being. We also find ourselves working more, living in fragmented communities, and neglecting our most basic spiritual and political values. As Curtis White puts it, “In order to live, you will be asked to do what is no good, what is absurd, trivial, demeaning, and soul killing.” Although we belong to the world’s most affluent society, somehow we never have the chance to ask: How shall we live?

With his trademark humor and acerbic wit, White raises this impertinent question. He also debunks the conventional view that liberalism can answer it without drawing on spiritual values. Surveying American popular culture (including Office Space and The Da Vinci Code) to illustrate his points, White urges us to renew our commitment to “human fundamentals” as articulated by Henry David Thoreau-especially free time, home, and food-and to reclaim Thoreau’s spirit of disobedience.

Seeking imaginative answers to his central questions, White also interviews John De Graaf (Affluenza), James Howard Kunstler (The Long Emergency) and Michael Ableman (Fields of Plenty) about their views of the good life in our time.

Dubbed “the most inquiringly wicked social critic of the moment,” novelist and essayist Curtis White is a professor of English at Illinois State University. His previous book, The Middle Mind: Why Americans Don’t Think for Themselves, was widely acclaimed. His other books include Monstrous Possibility, Requiem, Memories of My Father Watching TV, and The Idea of Home.

His essays have appeared in many publications, including Harper’s Magazine and The Village Voice. He lives in Normal, Illinois, with his wife Georganne Rundblad and their five psittacine companions.

Praise for The Spirit of Disobedience

“Curtis White has given us a brave and necessary corrective to some basic tenets of left/liberal ideology. This fine new book reminds us that the spirit of disobedience, rightly understood, is the very spirit of America.”
—Mark Crispin Miller, author of Fooled Again

“A splendid book, distinguished by the clarity of its thought, the force of its argument, the eloquence of its expression. White brings a great light into the darkness that has descended upon the hope of a decent American future, and his book should be required reading for any citizen looking for a way out of the mess that we have made of both the Christian ethic and the democratic spirit.”
—Lewis Lapham, author of Pretensions to Empire

“Those who call on America to behave like a Christian nation should be careful of what they wish for. As Curtis White shows us, with his usual penetrating analysis, this is hardly a goal compatible with conservative political practice, from foreign adventurism all the way down to Ten Commandments monuments on the courthouse lawn.”
—Thomas Frank, author of What’s the Matter With Kansas?

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Contact: Darcy Cohan
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A splendid book, distinguished by the clarity of its thought, the force of its argument, and the eloquence of its expression. - Lewis Lapham

THE SPIRIT OF DISOBEDIENCE: Resisting the Charms of Fake Politics, Mindless Consumption, and the Culture of Total Work (PoliPointPress, $24.00, January 2007, ISBN: 0-9778253-1-0)

In his new book, Curtis White, essayist and author of The Middle Mind debunks the delusion that liberalism has no need for spirituality and calls for a “middle way.”

With his trademark wit, White artfully challenges conventional notions of right and wrong, of liberal and conservative, and makes a convincing argument for the return of what Henry David Thoreau called “human fundamentals.”

Central to the book’s premise is White’s notion that, “in order to live, you will be asked to do what is no good, what is absurd, trivial, demeaning, and soul-killing.” Though we work in the world’s most affluent society, somehow we never have the chance fully to explore the question: How shall we live?

In search of an answer, White looks to pop culture – The DaVinci Code, Office Space, Al Franken, and Bill Maher – as well as to The Bible, Marx, Nietzsche, Thoreau, Hegel, Adam Smith and others. In addition, he features interviews with authors John DeGraaf (Affluenza), James Howard Kunstler (The Long Emergency), and Michael Ableman (Fields of Plenty) about their notions, respectively, of such necessary components as time, home and food.

What emerges from The Spirit of Disobedience are imaginative answers to age-old questions and a new synthesis of liberal thought with conservative values.

Described by Molly Ivins as “a splendidly cranky academic” and dubbed by Elle Magazine “the most inspiringly wicked social critic of the moment,” Curtis White is a professor of English at Illinois State University. In addition to his widely acclaimed The Middle Mind, White’s other books include Monstrous Possibility, Requiem, Memories of My Father Watching TV, and The Idea of Home. His essays have appeared in many publications, including Harper’s Magazine and The Village Voice.

More Information available at: http://p3books.com/books/disobedience