The Lie of Hope: A Manifesto Against Engineered Optimism is a ruthless dismantling of one of humanity's most weaponized illusions: hope. With clinical precision and prophetic urgency, Pierre Lagrenat exposes how systems of power—from pulpits to parliaments—manufacture optimism not to inspire, but to sedate. This is not a book of comfort. It is a siren, a refusal, a scalpel to the spiritual narcotics that keep people docile while they bleed.

From salvation sold after death to ballot boxes that recycle the same betrayal, this manifesto peels back the smiling masks of religion, politics, philanthropy, and even self-help culture. Hope, here, is not an antidote to despair—it is the leash that makes despair bearable.

This work breaks that leash.

Blending political critique, historical revelation, and linguistic fire, Lagrenat redefines hope as the enemy of power. Real transformation, he insists, begins not with belief in a better future, but with the destruction of illusions in the present.

Read this book if you're done waiting. If you're done praying. If you're ready to burn the scripts and write your own timeline.