This is an excellent book, a very original analysis of the effects of television on the mind. Television is the ideal medium for advertising and that format is applied to all TV production. This book is a good reminder that a life well lived is not a passive one, intellectually and physically stunted by a TV screen. Books, hobbies, conversation, contact with nature and people are better ways to feel alive and human. Mr. Mander gets to the essence of television and opens our eyes to its mercantile profile. Television endangers democracy by breaking communities and numbing our desires for real change and action.