The Culture of Fear by Barry Glassner

This was an interesting book, written about 20 years ago, updated after 9/11, which is the edition I read. It covers the fears that society had through the ’90s, including teen pregnancies, cybercrime, gangs, plane wrecks, and other things. His theory is that the media plays up smaller threats to distract from larger, more uncomfortable threats like poverty, racism, sexism.

It was the last book I read in January. I definitely recommend it.