Reviewers Blast Jordan Peterson Book for Misleading Edits to Make Their Negative Reviews Sound Glowing
Jordan Peterson was called out by critics who accused his publishers of misrepresenting their negative reviews of his book and reframing them in a deceptively positive light.
Peterson released his philosophical book Beyond Order in 2021 and it was published in paperback a year later. The paperback version includes several blurbs on the back cover taken from book reviews that appear to be glowing. However, several of those reviewers have slammed the book’s publishers at Penguin for decontextualizing their words and leaving out their decidedly-negative comments about the book.
One of the quoted reviews came from Johanna Thomas-Corr of the New Statesman, and according to the book cover, she lauded Peterson as “Genuinely enlightening and often poignant… Here is a father figure who takes his audience seriously. And here is a grander narrative about truth, being, order and chaos that stretches back to the dawn of human consciousness.”
While these lines did come from Thomas-Corr’s review, she called the book’s version of her words a “gross misrepresentation” of her review, and said “it should be removed.”
Her full review combines Thomas-Corr’s positive comments with Peterson’s controversial views, writing at one point that “He repeatedly identifies masculinity with order and femininity with chaos and makes it clear which side he feels we should favour.”
Another objection came from The Times reviewer James Marriott, because the blurb included from his review quoted him calling the book “A philosophy of the meaning of life… the most lucid and touching prose Peterson has ever written.”
In a now-deleted X post, Marriott noted that the ellipse covered up that his full sentence was “A philosophy of the meaning of life which is bonkers.”
“My review of this mad book was probably the most negative thing I have ever written,” Marriott said. He later added that he was amused by the situation, “Though my amusement is tinged with annoyance at being misrepresented to the tens of thousands of people who will buy that book in paperback
Thirdly, there was Suzanne Moore of the Telegraph, who was mostly favorable to the book two years ago, giving it four out of five stars in her review. She noticed, however, that book cover’s quote only read “Wisdom combined with good advice” when her actual quote was “Hokey wisdom combined with good advice.”
“Dumb blurbing by dumb publisher,” she said.
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