Short Synopsis
The Death of Expertise is not only an exploration of a dangerous phenomenon but also a warning about the stability and survival of modern democracy in the Information Age.

Full Synopsis
People are now exposed to more information than ever before, provided both by technology and by increasing access to every level of education. These societal gains, however, have also helped fuel a surge in narcissistic and misguided intellectual egalitarianism that has crippled informed debates on any number of issues. Today, everyone knows everything and all voices demand to be taken with equal seriousness, and any claim to the contrary is dismissed as undemocratic elitism.

Tom Nichols shows this rejection of experts has occurred for many reasons, including the openness of the internet, the emergence of a customer satisfaction model in higher education, and the transformation of the news industry into a 24-hour entertainment machine. Paradoxically, the increasingly democratic dissemination of information, rather than producing an educated public, has instead created an army of ill-informed and angry citizens who denounce intellectual achievement.

Nichols notes that when ordinary citizens believe that no one knows more than anyone else, democratic institutions themselves are in danger of falling either to populism or to technocracy-or in the worst case, a combination of both.

"A sharp analysis of an increasingly pressing problem." ---Kirkus

"A highly researched and impassioned book that's well timed for this post-election period." ---Publishers Weekly

"Tom Nichols has written a brilliant, timely, and very original book." ---Robert J. Lieber, author of Retreat and Its Consequences

"In a compelling, and often witty, polemic, [Nichols] explores why experts are routinely disregarded and what might be done to get authoritative knowledge taken more seriously." ---Sir Lawrence Freedman, author of Strategy

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