The 2008 presidential election saw plenty of criticism of elitism—and of its discontents. As a voter who resents intellectual snobbery, much of which is directed at people who are far too busy working to read blogs or watch The Daily Show, I felt chastened by Susan Jacoby’s pointed Age of American Unreason. Her book is cut from the same typewriter ribbon as Richard Hofstadter’s 1963 Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, and should be read carefully by anyone convinced that elitism is merely a symptom of smug self-regard. It turns out that hostility to what Jacoby terms “the vibrant and varied intellectual life so essential to American democracy” is, in fact, as American as wintergreen Skoal and neon orange hunting caps—not that I have an unkind word for either. Jacoby’s critique of “American unreason” is measured and extensively researched. Unfortunately, it’s also a touch on the humorless side; she comes off as more scold than firebrand. All the same, the value of her argument is undeniable, and no one who considers himself a patriot or a citizen can afford to shrug it off. Right or Left, “an absence of curiosity about other points of view” only ever leads to trouble.