The Assault on Reason

The Assault on Reason is a 2007 book written by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore. In the book, Gore argues that there is a trend in U.S. politics toward ignoring facts and analysis when making policy decisions. He heavily criticizes the George W. Bush administration for its actions in furthering the "assault on reason", and also the Congress, the judiciary, and the press for being complicit in the process. Gore also suggests the average citizen must be proactive in "restoring democracy". He expresses hopes that the medium of the Internet will supersede television and what he argues is its inherent bias, creating a "marketplace of ideas" that has not been present since the replacement of the printed word with mass media.

The book ranked number one on the New York Times Best Seller list for hardcover nonfiction during the first four weeks of its release, and was on the list top 35 for fifteen weeks. Actor Will Patton narrates the audio version.

Book reviews

The May 21, 2007 review in Publishers Weekly states:

The Assault

The Assault (original title in Dutch: De Aanslag) is a 1982 novel by Dutch author Harry Mulisch. Random House published an English translation by Claire Nicolas White in 1985. It covers 35 years in the life of the lone survivor of a night in Haarlem during World War II when the Nazi occupation forces, finding a Dutch collaborator murdered, retaliate by killing the family in front of whose home the body was found. According to the New York Times, this novel "made his reputation at home and abroad". It was translated into dozens of languages and immediately adapted into a film of the same name that won a Golden Globe Award.

Plot

The novel consists of a brief prologue and five "episodes" dated 1945, 1952, 1956, 1966, and 1981.

Twelve-year-old Anton Steenwijk is living with his parents and older brother on the outskirts of Haarlem in January 1945 under Nazi Occupation. One evening they hear shots and discover that Fake Ploeg, a prominent Dutch collaborator, has been shot. They watch as their neighbors, the Kortewegs, a father and his teen-age daughter, move the body from where it fell in front of their house to a position in front of the Steenwijks' house. In the chaotic hours that follow, Anton's family is killed and their house torched, while he spends a night in a dark police station cell in Heemstede being comforted by an unseen young woman prisoner. As Nazi authorities transport him to Amsterdam a German soldier dies trying to protect him when the convoy is attacked from the air. They place him in the care of an aunt and uncle there.

Al Gore

Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician and environmentalist who served as the 45th Vice President of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Chosen as Clinton's running mate in their successful 1992 campaign, he was reelected in 1996. At the end of Clinton's second term, Gore was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in 2000. After leaving office, Gore remained prominent as an author and environmental activist, whose work in climate change activism earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.

Gore was an elected official for 24 years. He was a Congressman from Tennessee (1977–85) and from 1985 to 1993 served as one of the state's Senators. He served as Vice President during the Clinton administration from 1993 to 2001. In the 2000 presidential election, in what was one of the closest presidential races in history, Gore won the popular vote but lost in the Electoral College to Republican George W. Bush. A controversial election dispute over a vote recount in Florida was settled by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled 5–4 in favor of Bush.

Assault

In common law, assault is harmful or offensive contact with a person.

An assault is carried out by a threat of bodily harm coupled with an apparent, present ability to cause the harm. It is both a crime and a tort and, therefore, may result in either criminal and/or civil liability. Generally, the common law definition is the same in criminal and tort law. There is, however, an additional criminal law category of assault consisting of an attempted but unsuccessful battery. The term is often confused with battery, which involves physical contact. The specific meaning of assault varies between countries, but can refer to an act that causes another to apprehend immediate and personal violence, or in the more limited sense of a threat of violence caused by an immediate show of force. Assault in many US jurisdictions and Scotland is defined more broadly still as any intentional physical contact with another person without their consent; but in England and Wales and in most other common law jurisdictions in the world, this is defined instead as battery. Some jurisdictions have incorporated the definition of civil assault into the definition of the crime making it a criminal assault intentionally to cause another person to apprehend a harmful or offensive contact.

Reason

Reason is the capacity for consciously making sense of things, applying logic, establishing and verifying facts, and changing or justifying practices, institutions, and beliefs based on new or existing information. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, mathematics, and art and is normally considered to be a definitive characteristic of human nature. The concept of reason is sometimes referred to as rationality and sometimes as discursive reason, in opposition to intuitive reason.

Reason or "reasoning" is associated with thinking, cognition, and intellect. Reason, like habit or intuition, is one of the ways by which thinking comes from one idea to a related idea. For example, it is the means by which rational beings understand themselves to think about cause and effect, truth and falsehood, and what is good or bad. It is also closely identified with the ability to self-consciously change beliefs, attitudes, traditions, and institutions, and therefore with the capacity for freedom and self-determination.