Charles Sykes's ProfScam sparked a furious debate over the mission and the failure of our universities. Now he turns his attention to an even more controversial subject. A Nation of Victims is the first book on the startling decay of the American backbone and the disease that is causing it. The spread of victimism has been widely noted in the media; indeed, its symptoms have produced best-selling books, fueled television ratings, spawned hundreds of support groups, and enriched tens of thousands of lawyers across the country. The plaint of the victim - Its not my fault - has become the loudest and most influential voice in America, an instrument of personal and lasting political change. In this incisive, pugnacious, frequently hilarious book, Charles Sykes reveals a society that is tribalizing, where individuals and groups define themselves not by shared culture, but by their status as victims. Victims of parents, of families, of men, of women, of the workplace, of sex, of stress, of drugs, of food, of college reading lists, of personal physical characteristics - these and a host of other groups are engaged in an ever-escalating fight for attention, sympathy, money, and legal or governmental protection. What's going on and how did we get to this point? Sykes traces the inexorable rise of the therapeutic culture and the decline of American self-reliance. With example after example, he shows how victimism has co-opted the genuine victories of the civil-rights movement for less worthy goals. And he offers hope: the prospect of a culture of renewed character, where society lends compassion to those who truly need it. Like Shelby Steele, Charles Murray, and Dinesh D'Souza, Charles Sykes defines the ground of what will be a significant national debate.

As Justice Louis Brandeis suggested more than a century ago, privacy—the right to be left alone—is the most valued, if not the most celebrated, right enjoyed by Americans. But in the face of computer, video, and audio technology, aggressive and sophisticated marketing databases, state and federal “wars” against crime and terrorism, new laws governing personal behavior, and an increasingly intrusive media, all of us find our personal space and freedom under attack. In The End of Privacy , Charles Sykes traces the roots of privacy in our nation’s founding and Constitution, and reveals its inexorable erosion in our time. From our homes and offices to the presidency, Sykes defines what we have lost, citing example after example of citizens who have had their conversations monitored, movements surveilled, medical and financial records accessed, sexual preferences revealed, homes invaded, possessions confiscated, and even lives threatened—all in the name of some alleged higher social or governmental good. Sykes concludes by suggesting steps by which we might begin to recover the territory we’ve lost: our fundamental right to our own lives.