Let a thousand flowers bloom, on the too rare occasions when they do, but for the weeds give me the pruning shears of Peter Heinegg any day. He does it again in this new collection, slicing through the sloppy conventional pieties that drape over and choke off the serious discussion of culture. -Jack Miles, author of God: A Biography Never have such a broad range and deep well of historical occurrences, contemporary illustrations, and artistic examples been so relentlessly enlisted in a forced march of lock-step determination to drag humanity to own up to its follies, foibles, vanities, and atrocities. [Heinegg's] high standards form not a City on a Hill but a mighty hammer that smashes what seems to be the essential evil of everything human. -John M. Phelan, professor emeritus of media and politics at Fordham University, New York City, and founding director of their Public Interest Communications Graduate Program

Crazy Culture is a series of broadsides against many widely held misconceptions in both academe and the general public, who is often seen clustering under the politically correct banner of multiculturalism. Heinegg confronts the notion that all culture—especially that of non-westerners and oppressed minorities—is somehow good in itself and that outsiders have no right to criticize or condemn any cultures except their own. He also challenges the view that the term “culture” applies primarily to a handful of masterpieces, as opposed to the great bulk of artistic products and folkways, and that the proper attitude toward the vast spectrum of culture, past and present, is sentimental admiration. Surveying both the history and ideology of cultural realms such as our treatment of animals, religion, sexual norms, politics, economics, urban life, the arts, and athletics, Heinegg deftly identifies and explains ubiquitous traces of cultural sins by humanity.