The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead

The New York Times Book Review

Well-constructed, civic-minded…full of compelling statistics and anecdotes.

Los Angeles Times

On-target analysis of how this noxious and, in the true sense, un-American corruption came to infect our culture.

Deseret Morning News

The author provides persuasive evidence that our society is riddled with dishonesty.

St. Petersburg Times

Callahan's on to something: an ingrained and growing national compulsion to succeed at any cost.

Salon.com

Hair-raising. [P]acked with alarming anecdotes.

Baltimore Sun

Dozens of books have examined this phenomenon. None I have yet seen does it with [this] anger, vigor and persuasiveness.

Esquire

A damning and persuasive critique of America's new economic life.

Philadelphia Inquirer

This should be required reading for every high school and college student, and anyone who's ever complained about how bad things have gotten.

Seattle Times

Highly readable. Callahan has done us a good turn by confronting the question of 'why do Americans do wrong?'

Publishers Weekly

Newspapers have reported on many cases of corporate fraud at the highest executive levels in the past two years, but Callahan cites other instances of people going to often questionable lengths to succeed. It's estimated that half of all major league baseball players are taking steroids to enhance their strength and performance. Many attorneys regularly overstate their hours to stay competitive with their colleagues. To get into the right college, high schoolers will turn in papers written by tutors, while their parents shop for psychologists willing to diagnose a learning disability to gain extra time on the SAT. Callahan, director of public policy center Demos and frequent TV commentator, has a simple explanation for this proliferation of cheating. In a cutthroat economic climate, everybody wants to get ahead, and decades of deregulation have made it easy to bend the rules. He further argues that when the middle class sees wealthy cheaters get away with nothing more than a slap on the wrist, it inspires them to follow suit. A fairly obvious premise, to be sure, but the book's strength lies in tying together assorted detailed descriptions of cheating throughout the system and explaining the connections between disparate acts like r sum inflation, tax evasion and illegal downloads. He offers straightforward, commonsensical solutions, including increased funding for federal enforcement agencies. (Jan.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Village Voice

"Callahan compiles a meticulous mountain of data about our current state of disgrace."

Seattle Times

"Highly readable. Callahan has done us a good turn by confronting the question of 'why do Americans do wrong?' "

Library Journal

CNN and NPR commentator and cofounder of the public policy center Demos, Callahan here presents a sordid picture of greed and corruption in American society. Though he provides broad coverage, he breaks little new ground in detailing instances of cheating in business, politics, and academia. Callahan's initially balanced tone shifts during the book, and the last section exhorts readers to take a stance and help to end cheating. The question of why more Americans are cheating is left mostly unexplored. The book's publicity blurb reads, "Callahan pins the blame on the dog-eat-dog economic climate of the past two decades," but he spends less time developing his arguments about why and how our culture arrived at this point than he does in pushing for cultural change. Callahan backs up his arguments, and the book contains adequate endnotes, but librarians looking for a thorough examination of this cultural development will find that this title is passionately argued but not sufficiently complex. Still, this work may be a popular choice in larger public libraries, and academic libraries may wish to consider.-Audrey Snowden, Brewer, ME Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

Adult/High School-This is the kind of book that will have incredulous teens calling up their friends in order to read passages aloud. It's that scary. Callahan's premise is that, yes, there is a true moral crisis in this country, but it has nothing to do with so-called "family values"-and everything to do with the fact that more Americans are feeling the pressure to cheat to get ahead. From parents who bribe psychiatrists to diagnose their teens with phony mental disorders (buying the kids extra time for their SATs) to the Little League star pitcher who made it to the World Series before it was discovered that he was too old to be playing, the stories are amazing. Is there more cheating today than in years past? That's debatable, but Callahan makes a strong case that the 1980s, with their new emphasis on "leaner, meaner" companies and dog-eat-dog competition, created an atmosphere that makes cheating almost seem inevitable. One of the author's most important observations is that white-collar crime, often costing Americans billions of dollars, goes ridiculously unpunished while we lock up the poor for the most minor of drug offenses. People pat each other on the backs about successful tax evasion, which costs the government millions, but think a man who shoplifts a bottle of wine is deviant scum. Well-researched and very readable chapters on corruption in the sports world, in health care, on r sum s, and elsewhere will give teens much to talk (and probably shout) about. A perfect choice for a book-discussion group.-Emily Lloyd, formerly at Rehoboth Beach Public Library, DE Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.