I Am America (And So Can You!)
Stephen Colbert, 2007
★ 3.90 from 85.1k ratings on Goodreads
A fake conservative pundit explains America in rants, charts and footnotes—a comic time capsule of cable-news certainty and expert distrust. Colbert's voice is smug, brisk and footnote-cluttered, mixing mock certainty with jokes that sometimes curdle into unease.
Feels like humor, unease and nostalgia. About society, art and power.
Who it’s for
You may enjoy this if you like satire that commits hard to a pompous narrator and rewards attention to charts and footnotes. Be warned that the central joke can feel repetitive over a full book, and some readers find the parody uncomfortably close to real rhetoric.
Why read it
It preserves the mid-2000s cable-news register with unusual precision, letting you laugh at confident bluster while noticing how familiar it still sounds.
A page from the book
The cheerful logic of a country deciding its past never happened.
So let’s take that beautiful idea to its logical conclusion and not only leave the past behind but deny the past ever happened. Like this: America is not a land of immigrants. There. Was that so hard to say? It makes sense if you think about it. It feels like we’ve been here forever, doesn’t it? Let’s just assume we have been. What readers say
Many readers found the book uproariously funny, especially as an audiobook, and enjoyed its satirical take on conservative rhetoric. Others felt the joke wore thin, finding it repetitive or overlong, while some were unsettled by how closely the parody echoed real politics.
Stephen Colbert.Colbert is the youngest of eleven children from Charleston, South Carolina; he performed with Chicago's Second City before television.
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Questions readers ask
- Is I Am America (And So Can You!) for me?
- You may enjoy this if you like satire that commits hard to a pompous narrator and rewards attention to charts and footnotes. Be warned that the central joke can feel repetitive over a full book, and some readers find the parody uncomfortably close to real rhetoric.
- What is I Am America (And So Can You!) like?
- Colbert's voice is smug, brisk and footnote-cluttered, mixing mock certainty with jokes that sometimes curdle into unease. Feels like humor, unease and nostalgia. About society, art and power.
- What should I read after I Am America (And So Can You!)?
- If you liked I Am America (And So Can You!), try America (Jon Stewart), The O'Reilly Factor (Bill O'Reilly) and The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck (Mark Manson).
A taste of the feed
How do you write a founding document when someone keeps talking about his anatomy?
But on what basis should the three branches of government be divided? It came down to two dueling ideas: Madison’s proposal of an executive, judicial and legislative branch, and Georgia’s Joseph Morton’s proposal to dole out power according to, “The presence, forbearance, rectictude and largeosity of one’s ‘Plums and Carrot’.” After much deliberation, it was decided Madison’s proposal would be accepted, Morton only relenting after the Constitutional Convention agreed to proclaim him “impressive.”
America · Jon Stewart
Who benefits when a country pretends it has no classes?
Politicians don’t usually talk about class. It might open a dangerous door. Advertisers want us to believe we’re all one class: the consuming class, equal as long as we keep spending. The rich want us to believe that anyone can make the quantum leap from bowling league to country club by just working a little harder. That’s supposed to keep us motivated and quiet.
The O'Reilly Factor · Bill O'Reilly
The things you're dodging are already charging you rent.
Any attempt to escape the negative, to avoid it or quash it or silence it, only backfires. The avoidance of suffering is a form of suffering. The avoidance of struggle is a struggle. The denial of failure is a failure. Hiding what is shameful is itself a form of shame.
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck · Mark Manson
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