Thomas Frank at Harvard Book Store
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA
Admission: Free
Harvard Book Store welcomes Thomas Frank —a founding editor of The Baffler, a former columnist for The Wall Street Journal, and the bestselling author of What’s the Matter with Kansas? and Listen, Liberal —for a discussion of his new book The Creativity Con: How Innovation Became America’s Biggest Racket. About The Creativity Con A bold indictment of America’s chronic obsession with creativity and innovation, tracing how these beloved ideas came to dominate our political and economic conversation while serving to mask inequality and protect elite interests. “Innovation” and “creativity” have been the defining watchwords of American exceptionalism for decades. They’re deployed by business leaders, tech gurus, military strategists, educators, and urban planners to describe our unique standing in the world. While other countries supposedly suffer from regimentation and a fatal lack of imagination, the United States is often portrayed as an unmatched dynamo of new ideas and products. In The Creativity Con , Thomas Frank disabuses us of this notion, offering a provocative account of the way creativity and innovation have been used as a kind of ideological cover for policies that…