Sincerity: How a moral ideal born five hundred years ago inspired religious wars, modern art, hipster chic, and the curious notion that we all have something to say (no matter how dull)

A Wall Street Journal Top-Ten Nonfiction Book of 2012 and a New York Times Editors' Choice


A cultural and intellectual history of sincerity, from its emergence during the Protestant Reformation to its present incarnations and adversaries.

People have long been duped by "straight-talking" politicians, confessional talk-show hosts, and fake-earnest advertisers. As sincerity has become suspect, the upright and honest have taken refuge in irony. Yet our struggle for authenticity in back-to-the-woods movements, folksy songwriting, and a craving for plainspoken presidential candidates betrays our longing for the holy grail of sincerity.

Bringing deep historical perspective and a brilliant contemporary spin to Lionel Trilling's 1972 Sincerity and Authenticity, R. Jay Magill Jr. argues that we can't shake sincerity's deep theological past, emotional resonance, and the sense of conscience it has carved in the Western soul. From Protestant theology to paintings by crazy people, from French satire to the anti-hipster movement, Magill navigates history, religion, art, and politics to create a portrait of an ideal that, despite its abuse, remains a strange magnetic north in our secular moral compass. 10 illustrations

R. Jay Magill, Jr. is an independent scholar living in Berlin, where he works for the American Academy as a writer and editor, as well as a host of a radio program on NPR Worldwide. He is the author of Chic Ironic Bitterness (2007), and Sincerity (2012). A former Harvard teaching fellow and executive editor of DoubleTake, Magill has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Atlantic Monthly, Foreign Policy, American Prospect, Boston Globe, Der Spiegel, and Print, among others. Magill is also a staff illustrator at the political bimonthly The American Interest. He lives in Berlin with his wife and son.