Here's what a review of the book in The Boston Globe said:
From the late 19th century onward, it was more or less accepted that the ideal purpose of American education and parenting was to produce athletic, popular young men and women, the sort who end up in business, law, or politics. But sometime during the 1980s it began to be a lot harder to dismiss the awkward kids with thick glasses, obsessive interests, and no social skills.
Blending social history, memoir, and reportage, recovering nerd Benjamin Nugent takes on a tour of the world of 'my people,' who they are, and how they came to be. As the 19th-century educational movement alluded became pervasive in the nation's schools (a movement perhaps best summarized by Groton headmaster Endicott Peabody's remark 'I'm not sure I like boys who think too much'), it was all too obvious that there were plenty of young men who would never fit the mold. American Nerd is in large part the story of how these young men (and later women) found subcultures where they did fit in. Nugent deftly recounts the origins of science fiction fan conferences, distills ham radio and Dungeons & Dragons to their essentials.
The passages in which Nugent reduces nerds to their essence (and the obligatory chapter on nerds and Asperger's syndrome) will provoke winces of self-recognition in a lot of readers, which is why this book is at its best when Nugent makes everything personal.
