The defense of pure reason

Al Gore and friend

Former vice president Al Gore's new book, "The Assault on Reason," is shaping up to be one of the hottest nonfiction titles of the spring. Scheduled to be released nationwide on May 22, the book seeks to explain (according to promotional verbiage) "how the politics of fear, secrecy, cronyism, and blind faith has combined with the degradation of the public sphere to create an environment dangerously hostile to reason."

In the wake of his Academy Award for the movie, "An Inconvenient Truth," and shifting attitudes toward the hazards of climate change, Gore has become a huge celebrity. He'll go on a dozen-city book tour when the book comes out, and sponsors had better be prepared for overflow crowds -- citing Nielsen BookScan, the book-sales rating service, Publishers Weekly online says Gore's paperback book version of "An Inconvenient Truth" has sold 315,000 copies.