Don't Think, Smile!: Notes on a Decade of Denial

"Reading Ellen Willis feels like a great discussion with a witty, politically perceptive friend over Sunday-morning bagels and endless cups of coffee."*The 1990s were a decade of unprecedented economic expansion. They were also a decade that saw stagnant wages and globalization, Monica-gate and the [...]
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"Reading Ellen Willis feels like a great discussion with a witty, politically perceptive friend over Sunday-morning bagels and endless cups of coffee."*The 1990s were a decade of unprecedented economic expansion. They were also a decade that saw stagnant wages and globalization, Monica-gate and the O. J. Simpson trial, The Bell Curve and the Million Man March. Most notably, Ellen Willis argues, they were a decade that saw an astounding refusal, on both the left and right, to question received wisdom or engage in substantive deliberation. Turning her acute eye on the cultural and political reaction to these imbroglios, Willis demands that we radically rethink our country and ourselves to create a society in which we can fully enjoy life. "Illuminating and incisive."-Judith Newman, The New York Times Book Review "In a time when politics and political writing have degenerated into sound bites and sensationalism, Ellen Willis reminds us that integrity and human dignity, a quick wit and a dead-on style, offer the hope that we can make sense of-and maybe even change-the world."-*Michael Bronski, The Boston Phoenix Literary Supplement "For thirty years, in a wide arc from the Village Voice and Social Text to the New Yorker and Mirabella, Ellen Willis has been the sixties' best exponent and a savvy interpreter of American politics and culture."-George Scialabba, Dissent "Suffused by a romantic and intelligent magnanimity, these essays abound with nuggets of insight."-Eugene McCarraher, Commonweal Author Bio: Formerly a staff writer for The New Yorker and The Village Voice, Ellen Willis is director of the cultural reporting and criticism program at New York University. She is the author of Beginning to See the Light: Sex, Hope, and Rock & Roll and No More Nice Girls: Countercultural Essays. She lives in New York City.