The Authenticity Hoax: How We Get Lost Finding Ourselves

One of Canada's hippest, smartest cultural critics takes on the West's defining value.

We live in a world increasingly dominated by the fake, the prepackaged, the artificial: fast food, scripted reality TV shows, Facebook "friends," and fraudulent memoirs. But people everywhere are demanding the exact opposite, heralding "authenticity" as the cure for isolated individualism and shallow consumerism. Restaurants promote the authenticity of their cuisine, while condo developers promote authentic loft living and book reviewers regularly praise the authenticity of a new writer's voice.

International bestselling author Andrew Potter brilliantly unpacks our modern obsession with authenticity. In this perceptive and thought-provoking blend of pop culture, history, and philosophy, he finds that far from serving as a refuge from modern living, the search for authenticity often creates the very problems it's meant to solve.

Andrew Potter is the coauthor of the international bestseller The Rebel Sell. A journalist and writer, he holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Toronto, and he is a former assistant professor at Trent University in Peterborough. He has also taught at the University of Toronto and the University of Quebec at Montreal. He is currently a public affairs columnist with Maclean’s and an editor with Canadian Business magazine.