The Death of Truth review: How fake US election news generated more readers

One would have expected more literary references and a historical interpretation of what led to the Trump phenomenon

Following US President Donald Trump on Twitter can be very gratifying. His nicknames for archrivals, his flippant use of messaging lingo and a demeanour that most presidents would be horrified to be identified with make for excellent lunchtime entertainment. At the heart of it, though, is a serious breakdown of language, objectivity and humanitarian values. Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times’s award-winning former literary critic, unpacks the phenomenon of warped relativism that is replacing an objective truth through a long history of literary works that seemed to have clairvoyantly warned us of the times we now live in. The Death