Sometimes it feels like we are lost in a big house of fear where we encounter one damn thing after another that scares us out of our wits. Some of us reach out for the life jackets of safety and security, convinced that these approaches will save us from all harm. In this focused and unsettling book by historian Elaine Tyler May, we see the many ways in which American politicians, military leaders, journalists, and military and police spokespersons have immersed us in fear and then watched as we let it seep into every dimension of our lives.

During the 1950s, the culture's movers and shakers convinced us that the Cold War was a major threat and that Communism, nuclear bombs, and outsiders would rob us of freedom and the comforts we had already achieved at great cost. The government staged civil defense exercises and many people built backyard bomb shelters. Of course, a toxin from this era was McCarthyism, a general term for the investigation of supposed traitors and the spread of accusations against them, often without adequate evidence.

During the 1960s and the 1970s, rampant fear of crime and prejudice against young African American males led wealthy whites to separate themselves from "undesirables" by living in walled and gated communities. The zealous pursuit of law and order resulted in mass incarceration of blacks, often in profit-making private prisons.

With energy and a winning perspective, May reveals the growth of the gun industry, the militarization of the police, the exaggerated fright over child kidnapping, and the trumped-up counsel of white patriarchs that women should stay at home in order to be safe from rapists. May has rendered us all a helpful service by pointing out the extent to which our culture has embraced fear and in turn, has abandoned freedom and equality as foundational principles of American democracy.

Fear is addictive; once we get going down its path, we notice even more reasons to be afraid. The world's religions and spiritual paths have long offered ways to reframe and work with fear. Spirituality & Practice offers a wide variety of these spiritual practices you can try as antidotes to this toxin.