THE CORRUPTED LAND: The Social Morality of Modern America

by Fred J. Cook ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

The author of exposes of America's defense industries and the FBI takes as his text this time Chaucer's Pardoner's theme: avarice is the root of all evil. The business ethic, or anything for a profit, writes Cook, has become the dominant factor in American life. The Lord Himself, in the days before he called down fire and brimstone on Sodom, could not have compiled a more intimate, detailed and dramatically interesting record of corruption than Cook has here. Electric company executives conspire against the public; television quiz shows demonstrate that cheating can be profitable; police night-owl as burglars; just plain Joes turn to robbing banks to pay their debts and excuse themselves on the grounds that the institutions can stand the loss; Dillie Sol Estes comes riding out of the West; and in the Capitol, Bobby Baker dispenses favors, like soft drinks, to keep himself solvent. Cook supplies names, dates and amounts in this damaging indictment of contemporary ethics. A headline reader in muckraker's disguise.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1966

Categories: NONFICTION