Title:
Hoax : a history of deception : 5,000 years of fakes, forgeries, and fallacies
Author:
Added Author:
Publication Date:
2018
Publication Information:
New York : Black Dog & Leventhal, Hachette Book Group, 2018.
©2018
Physical Description:
xi, 244 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
ISBN:
9780316503723
Abstract:
"Organized chronologically, Hoax begins with the first documented announcement of the end of the world from 365 AD and winds its way through controversial tales such as the Loch Ness Monster and the Shroud of Turin, past proven fakes such as the Thomas Jefferson's ancient wine and the Davenport Tablets built by a lost race, and explores bald-faced lies in the worlds of art, science, literature, journalism, and finance"-- Provided by publisher.
Contents:
Other animals: Evolution of the con -- Apocalypticism: the end of the world as we know it -- Pseudoarkeology: The ark at the end of the rainbow -- Predetermined combat: Gladiators and pro wrestlers -- Selling empires: The Julian purchase -- Cryptozoology: The Loch Ness Monster -- Sacred relics: The precious prepuce -- Gender bending: Pope Joan -- Sindonology: The Shroud of Turin -- Renaissance reprobates: Michelangelo's Cupid -- Fraudulent ethnicity: Psalmanazar -- Romantic suicide: Thomas Chatterton -- Counterfeit wine: Thomas Jefferson's Lafite -- PseudoShakespeare: The boy who would be bard -- Cryptoanthropology: The saga of Bigfoot -- Imaginary lands: Poyais -- Alternate realities: Faked photographs -- Aerial feats: Edgar Allan Poe and the great balloon hoax -- Communing with the departed: Spiritualism and evolution -- Diddling: The original con man -- Pseudoarchaeology: The Davenport tablets -- Ultimate diets: Breatharianism -- Deathbed conversions: The Lady Hope -- Forged documents: The Priory of Sion -- Public credulity: Political lies -- Political persecutions: The Dreyfus affair -- Financial fraud: The scammer scammed -- Fake paleoanthropology: Piltdown -- Arctic exploration: Robert Peary -- Quack medicine: Radionics -- Mythogenesis: the six Mona Lisas -- Fake music: Fritz Kreisler -- Pseudoplanetology: Flat and hollow Earths -- Fake art: Tribute or exploitation? -- Dialectical biology: Lysenkoism and its consequences -- Counterfeit cadavers: "The man who never was" -- Invented identities: Korla Pandit -- Misguided archaeology: A lion in winter -- Circumnavigations that weren't: The sad saga of Donald Crowhurst -- Lunacy: Conspiracy theories -- Human variation: The fallacy of race -- Eternal life: the frozen self -- Homeopathy: The memory of water -- Pseudopaleontology: "Archaeoraptor" -- Unreliable memories: Fake memoirs -- Irrational hysteria: Vaccines and autism -- Peer review: Jan Hendrik Schön -- Bogus security: Fake bomb detectors -- Faked deaths: Pseudocide -- Fake journalism: Stephen Glass, Jayson Blair, and their legacy.
Genre:
Language:
English
