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From legendary filmmaker and author Werner Herzog, a compact, effervescent, and deeply personal exploration of art, philosophy, and history that unravels one of our most elusive and contested questions: What is truth—and how to find it in our "post-truth" era?
For over half a century, Werner Herzog has challenged, enriched, and expanded our understanding of the truth. His films and books have mixed fiction and nonfiction, documentary and drama, reality and imagination. Invariably, Herzog goes beyond the appearance of what is true in search of a higher truth, or what he has often referred to as the "ecstatic truth." In The Future of Truth, a great artist essays an answer to one of humanity's deepest, most eternal questions. At a moment when deepfake AI videos are proliferating, and most people have simply thrown up their hands in despair at the ubiquity of what we now know as fake news—not to mention the constant lying and propagandizing from certain public figures—Herzog seeks a remedy. Mixing memoir, history, politics, poetry, science, and fierce opinion, he writes with dazzling originality and panache, urging readers to be unflagging and imaginative in the pursuit of truth, endless though the quest may be:
I don't think truth is some kind of polestar in the sky that we will one day get to. It's more like an incessant striving. A movement, an uncertain journey, a seeking full of futile endeavor. But it is this journey into the unknown, into a vast twilit forest, that gives our lives meaning and purpose; it is what distinguishes us from the beasts in the fields.
"Herzog is an erudite and elegant writer seeking to understand what he considers the simulacrum of truth...Herzog concludes, on a more positive note, that the hard work of discovering the truth is what gives life dignity and meaning. An intelligent and thoughtful reflection on the truth and how we got here." —Library Journal (starred review)
"...a familiar and somewhat fuzzy defense of poetic license, though fans will relish his evocative prose and riffs on instances of confusion between reality and fantasy (including UFO abduction stories, Potemkin villages, and a Japanese company that supplies clients with actors who impersonate their friends and family members). It's a mixed bag." —Publishers Weekly
"In these impassioned pieces, [Herzog] offers his insights into the threats to the concept of truth...Herzog is an engaging ally...An erudite plea to not give up on truth." —Kirkus Reviews
"Here's proof that a book doesn't have to be long to be weighty. The new book by filmmaker Herzog (nimbly translated by Michael Hofmann) is slim, but it's packed with enough ideas to fill several doorstop-sized tomes." —Booklist
This information about The Future of Truth was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Werner Herzog was born in Munich on September 5, 1942. He made his first film in 1961 at the age of nineteen. Since then, he has produced, written, and directed more than seventy feature and documentary films, including Aguirre, the Wrath of God; Nosferatu the Vampyre; Fitzcarraldo; Little Dieter Needs to Fly; My Best Fiend; Grizzly Man; Encounters at the End of the World; and Cave of Forgotten Dreams. Herzog has published more than a dozen books of prose and directed as many operas. He lives in Munich and Los Angeles.
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