Bibliograph

Hoax, a history of deception : 5,000 years of fakes, forgeries, and fallacies, Ian Tattersall and Peter Névraumont

Type

Label

Hoax, a history of deception : 5,000 years of fakes, forgeries, and fallacies, Ian Tattersall and Peter Névraumont

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references (pages 225-236) and index

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Hoax

Nature of contents

bibliography

Oclc number

993420087

Responsibility statement

Ian Tattersall and Peter Névraumont

Sub title

a history of deception : 5,000 years of fakes, forgeries, and fallacies

Summary

"An entertaining collection of the most audacious and underhanded deceptions in the history of mankind, from sacred relics to financial schemes to fake art, music, and identities. World history is littered with tall tales and those who have fallen for them. Ian Tattersall, a curator emeritus at the American Museum of Natural History, has teamed up with Peter Névraumont to create this anti-history of the world, in which Michelangelo fakes a masterpiece; Arctic explorers seek an entrance into a hollow Earth; a Shakespeare tragedy is "rediscovered"; a financial scheme inspires Charles Ponzi; a spirit photographer snaps Abraham Lincoln's ghost; people can survive ingesting only air and sunshine; Edgar Allen Pie is the forefather of fake news; and the first human was not only British but played cricket

Table Of 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 & pro wrestlers -- Selling empires: Julian purchase -- Cryptozoology: Loch Ness Monster -- Sacred relics: precious prepuce -- Gender bending: Pope Joan -- Sindonology: 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: Saga of Bigfoot -- Imaginary lands: Poyais -- Alternate realities: Faked photographs -- Aerial feats: Edgar Allan Poe & the great balloon hoax -- Communing with the departed: Spiritualism & evolution -- Diddling: Original con man -- Pseudoarchaeology: Davenport tablets -- Ultimate diets: Breatharianism -- Deathbed conversions: Lady Hope -- Forged documents: Priory of Sion -- Public credulity: Political lies -- Political persecutions: Dreyfus affair -- Financial fraud: Scammer scammed -- Fake paleoanthropology: Piltdown -- Arctic exploration: Robert Peary -- Quack medicine: Radionics -- Mythogenesis: six Mona Lisas -- Fake music: Fritz Kreisler -- Pseudoplanetology: Flat and hollow Earths -- Fake art: Tribute or exploitation -- Dialectical biology: Lysenkoism & 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: Fallacy of race -- Eternal life: the frozen self -- Homeopathy: memory of water -- Pseudopaleontology: "Archaeoraptor" -- Unreliable memories: Fake memoirs -- Irrational hysteria: Vaccines & autism -- Peer review: Jan Hendrik Schön -- Bogus security: Fake bomb detectors -- Faked deaths: Pseudocide -- Fake journalism: Stephen Glass, Jayson Blair, & their legacy

Contributor