Rating: 
Summary: A Fine Australian Whine
Review: Despite the fact that I agree with most of Hughes' analysis of both the American left and right, this book rubbed me as the ranting of someone who would never dare take a stand and jump into the political fray himself. The title is ironic, considering that the book is one continuous complaint itself. Hughes DOES present sound, well-articulated criticisms of both liberal and conservative movements in the US, which, being a moderate, I find persuasive. However, it is so easy for pundits like himself and those on Sunday morning talking head shows to take shots at politicians from the outside, but don't have the intestinal fortitude to put their views on the line before a diverse, unpredictable electorate. I'll take him more seriously when he's served on the local city council for a couple of years.
Rating: 
Summary: Jeremiad?
Review: From the title of Hughes' book you might think this is a tale of woe; a malady of national discontent. Not so. It's too concise, humorous, and ultimately, optimistic, to be a Jeremiad. Nevertheless, Mr Hughes does spend a lot of time lamenting what's wrong with American culture, politics, and the society at large. His focus, and some of his wittiest criticisms are directed at the political ideologues; in academics, the arts and sciences, journalism, and of course party politics. He is dismissive of both extremes; the politically correct left and what he calls the patriotic correct right. He disabuses both sides of any idea that we are enthralled with their message. "One would rather swim than get in the same dinghy as the P.C. folk. But neither would one wish to don blazer and top-siders on the gin palace with it's twin 400-horsepower Buckleys, it's Buchanan squawk box, Falwell & Robertson compass, it's Quayle depth finder and it's broken bilge pump, that now sits listing on the Potomac..." Mr Hughes trains his critical spotlight on dogma, hypocrisy, biases, and bigotry; the opinion makers, spin-doctors, jargon generators and euphemists that have obfuscated the issues, and worse, have sacrificed consensus on the altar of ideology. He is ultimately optimistic as the problem does not lie with citizenry, as we are 'America' The problem remains squarely with ideologues. "The fact remains that America is a collective work of the imagination whose making never ends, and once that sense of collectivity, and mutual respect is broken the possibilities of Americanness begin to unravel. If they are fraying now, it is because the politics of ideology has for the last 20 years weakened and in some cases broken the traditional American genius for consensus, for getting along by making up practical compromises to meet real social needs". In a word - balance! Exactly the approach we need, and precisely the type of analysis in this well written and incisive book.
Rating: 
Summary: Creature of Complaint
Review: Funny, when I think of the term "culture of complaint", this book is the first thing that comes to mind as being a document belonging to that culture.This book is motivated less by thought than by curmudgeonliness. Hughes is a poor thinker and an abominable art critic. He consistently mistakes artistic innovation as "poor quality", often evaluating art which occupies an interstice between established forms by rigid and inappropriate terms.(His particular condemnation of certain artists reveals his unfamiliarity with their actual work; he perpetuates misrepresentations of the artists that were, in fact, conceived by the right wing.) Hughes does not think in social terms; rather, his naive analyses are informed only by his unexamined taste-- a taste continuous with that held by many other individuals who happen to be heterosexual, white, male, aged, and grumpy. A coincidence, Hughes would suppose.
Rating:
Summary: A call for skilled, complex, and eclectic thought
Review: Granted, attacking contemporary America's cultural love for the debased, the self-indulgent extreme, the hapless and unskilled mediocrity as well as the insipid cults that have risen around exhalting the helpless victim, nurturing the stunted "inner child" and bandaging the wounded self-esteem seems too obvious. Fortunately TIME Magazine Art Critic and writer extraordinaire Robert Hughes laces his acid-dripping pen with adroit observations and incredible verbal acrobatics in an all-out attack that provides hints of solutions and actual celebrations of all that is good in America. Hughes pulls no punches and spares no prisoners as he lambasts (always with great aplomb and wit) extremism from both sides. Liberals and Conservatives receive broadsword swashes and pin-point snipes in equal measures. Hughes calls ultimately calls for true eclectism as opposed to multi-culturalism- a movement in his mind that wrongly excludes other cultures in favor of often fictious historical revisionism. The rich bounty of American Culture, Hughes claims-the very culture that inspired him to leave Australia and settle in New York- lies in her melting pot of culture. America, in Hughes' expert eye, is a beautiful amalgamation of many cultures: European, Native, African, Spanish, Asian and so forth. He sees history as a complex organism made up of many diverse parts. Effective scholarship, debate and production must incorperate all while eschewing the demagoguery and finger pointing that tragically seems to prevail in so much public discourse. Make no mistake,like any good critic or thinker, Hughes is out to pick a fight and he certainly challenges all comers. One may not agree with all of his points or supports, but that isn't the point. Hughes' number one objective is to confront American apathy with an electo-shock to the system. In short, Hughes does indeed call for a certain brand of elitism in both art and public life. An elitism bred not of social class, race or economics but rather an hierarchy based upon skill, intelligence and vision. THE CULTURE OF COMPLAINT will challenge the reader as well as entertain. A magnificent read.
Rating:
Summary: A Finely-Tuned Blast At PC
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed Hughes' lively and pointed skewering of the apostles of PC and their tiresome love of victimhood. I must question how closely the Kirkus Reviews writer (cited above) read "Culture of Complaint" because the reviewer takes Hughes to task for not addressing some issues in more ponderous depth. The explanation is simple and is provided in the preface: "Culture" was drawn from a series of three lectures Hughes gave at Yale University, and the lectures are presented in the book with a minimum of editing. Heavily-footnoted lectures would have been a sure path to mass narcolepsy among Hughes' original sudiences.
Rating:
Summary: A major salvo against the PC fascists
Review: Interesting that Time Warner books should retitle Culture Of Complaint's original Oxford subtitle "The Fraying Of America" to the more victimist "The Ailing Heart" perhaps the nameless Kirkus reviewer considers this less "glitzy" and less abrasive to delicate PC hides, that small disenchanted section of academic has beens who cling to worn political slogans as their only recourse {short of being a reviewer at Kirkus} to facing their total failure at leading creative & independent lives.
Rating:
Summary: A major salvo against the PC fascists
Review: Interesting that Time Warner books should retitle Culture Of Complaint's original Oxford subtitle "The Fraying Of America" to the more victimist "The Ailing Heart" perhaps the nameless Kirkus reviewer considers this less "glitzy" and less abrasive to delicate PC hides, that small disenchanted section of academic has beens who cling to worn political slogans as their only recourse {short of being a reviewer at Kirkus} to facing their total failure at leading creative & independent lives.
Rating:
Summary: A weak book
Review: It's mostly a self-serving rant about all kinds of things Hughes doesn't like, and it has hardly a thoughtful or well-researched idea behind it. I don't think this kind of book does anyone any good--it simply encourages people to be intellectually lazy and to whine about what personally affronts their private sensibilities. A narcissitic book from a very vain, very pompous man.
Rating: 
Summary: Good cultural critique from a smart outsider
Review: It's strange that, during the 1990s, the two people who have thought most clearly about American culture and politics aren't American. One is the British journalist Christopher Hitchens; the other is the Australian art critic Robert Hughes. Why should a Hughes have such an advantage over the native literati? In a sentence, he comes from a culture that is brutally direct. Australians, in print and otherwise, don't care much for euphemism. Hughes writes without the stream of caveats, pre-emptive apologies, and other bad-faith gestures that fill most books on the "culture wars." This most un-American way of writing sheds considerable light on this overdone subject, and at his best Hughes verges on Tocquevillean. It's a shame that some clown at a publishing house rewrote the subtitle as "A Passionate Look into the Ailing Heart of America." The new subtitle represents just the type of therapeutic pap Hughes is out to squash. The original ("The Fraying of America") said it much better, and with fewer words.
Rating:
Summary: Hughes delivers again
Review: Robert Hughes is one of my favorite writers on history and art, and I also enjoyed his book, The Fatal Shore, a history of the Botany Bay colony in Australia. Hughes has always had an interest in modern art (many of you may recall his great TV series, "The Shock of the New," back in the 80's), and since much of modern art has come out of America, perhaps it's no surprise he wrote this book, which takes a broader look at American culture. Hughes's devastating critique of the foibles of modern American politics, political correctness, racial and gender issues, pop culture, post-modern criticism, and graduate liberal arts education, to name a few of the things he takes aim at, is articulate, entertaining, and deadly accurate. Unlike the post-modern critics whose obscure and turgid prose he skewers, Hughes knows how to write, and he puts that to good effect in this book. Cultural ideas, icons, and events, both high- and lowbrow, don't fail to escape his purview and his petard. (He even has an entertaining discussion of religion and masturbation on pages 56-57). Hughes's book reminds me of another important work, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, by sociologist Daniel Bell, in which he noted America is a country where seemingly paradoxical cultural traits often find happy marriages and perhaps even happier divorces. And as Hughes points out, our increasingly politically correct Zeitgeist threatens to underwhelm us all with the ever more blanched and bloodless cornucopia of American pop culture. Overall, this is a fun romp through the cultural minefield of modern America, and I'd actually give it 4.5 stars if I could. If we listen to Hughes, perhaps it won't become the sterile, cultural necropolis full of the "stuffed and hollow" men that T.S. Elliot wrote about in his famous poem, "The Wasteland."
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