The Authenticity Hoax

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The Authenticity Hoax

Author : Andrew Potter
Publisher : McClelland & Stewart
ISBN 13 : 1551993473
Total Pages : 310 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (519 download)

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Book Synopsis The Authenticity Hoax by : Andrew Potter

Download or read book The Authenticity Hoax written by Andrew Potter and published by McClelland & Stewart. This book was released on 2010-04-06 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of Canada's hippest, smartest cultural critics takes on the West's defining value. We live in a world increasingly dominated by the fake, the prepackaged, the artificial: fast food, scripted reality TV shows, Facebook "friends," and fraudulent memoirs. But people everywhere are demanding the exact opposite, heralding "authenticity" as the cure for isolated individualism and shallow consumerism. Restaurants promote the authenticity of their cuisine, while condo developers promote authentic loft living and book reviewers regularly praise the authenticity of a new writer's voice. International bestselling author Andrew Potter brilliantly unpacks our modern obsession with authenticity. In this perceptive and thought-provoking blend of pop culture, history, and philosophy, he finds that far from serving as a refuge from modern living, the search for authenticity often creates the very problems it's meant to solve.

The Authenticity Hoax

Author : Andrew Potter
Publisher : McClelland & Stewart
ISBN 13 : 077107106X
Total Pages : 307 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (71 download)

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Book Synopsis The Authenticity Hoax by : Andrew Potter

Download or read book The Authenticity Hoax written by Andrew Potter and published by McClelland & Stewart. This book was released on 2011-05-03 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of Canada's hippest, smartest cultural critics takes on the West's defining value. We live in a world increasingly dominated by the fake, the prepackaged, the artificial: fast food, scripted reality TV shows, Facebook "friends," and fraudulent memoirs. But people everywhere are demanding the exact opposite, heralding "authenticity" as the cure for isolated individualism and shallow consumerism. Restaurants promote the authenticity of their cuisine, while condo developers promote authentic loft living and book reviewers regularly praise the authenticity of a new writer's voice. International bestselling author Andrew Potter brilliantly unpacks our modern obsession with authenticity. In this perceptive and thought-provoking blend of pop culture, history, and philosophy, he finds that far from serving as a refuge from modern living, the search for authenticity often creates the very problems it's meant to solve.

The Hoax

Author : Clifford Irving
Publisher : Open Road Media
ISBN 13 : 149761998X
Total Pages : 455 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (976 download)

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Book Synopsis The Hoax by : Clifford Irving

Download or read book The Hoax written by Clifford Irving and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-04-01 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “fascinating” memoir—and the inspiration for the movie starring Richard Gere—from the man behind the forged autobiography of Howard Hughes (Time). Novelist Clifford Irving’s no-holds-barred account of his faked autobiography of Howard Hughes—one of the greatest literary hoaxes of the twentieth century—is the ultimate caper story. The plan was concocted in the early 1970s, when eccentric billionaire Hughes was already living as a recluse in the Bahamas. An American author, Irving pitched the scheme to his friend, fellow writer Richard Suskind: Through forged letters and fake interviews, they would recount Hughes’s life “in his own words.” Meanwhile, Irving’s wife would open a Swiss bank account in the name of “Helga R. Hughes” using a fake passport. Their success hinged on the assumption that Hughes would never resurface to challenge the book, as he had not spoken to the press in over ten years. Conning Irving’s own publisher of nearly a decade out of a six-figure advance, the three conspirators embarked on a hoax that would fool journalists, handwriting experts, and even a lie-detector test. It was not until Hughes himself emerged from seclusion to denounce Irving that the book was exposed as fraud. This madcap, bestselling memoir “is a story which reads like the best thriller fiction and which contains the seeds of a dozen movie scripts. Mysterious meetings, false passports, a beautiful Danish baroness, Swiss bank accounts . . .” The Hoax is a masterpiece of international intrigue and startling revelations (The Tatler, England). “Brilliant!” —Newsday “A masterpiece!” —CBS Radio "Spellbinding!” —Publishers Weekly “Sensational!” —New York Daily New

Hoax

Author : Edward Steers
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 0813141605
Total Pages : 244 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (131 download)

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Book Synopsis Hoax by : Edward Steers

Download or read book Hoax written by Edward Steers and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2013-04-01 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “lively yet thoroughly researched” look at persistent myths and stubborn scams, and how historians try to combat them (The Courier-Journal). Did a collector with a knack for making sensational discoveries really find the first document ever printed in America? Did Hitler actually pen a revealing set of diaries? Has Jesus’ burial cloth survived the ages? Can the shocking true account of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination be found in lost pages from his murderer’s diary? Napoleon famously observed that “history is a set of lies agreed upon,” and Edward Steers Jr. investigates six of the most amazing frauds ever to gain wide acceptance in this engrossing book. Hoax examines the legitimacy of the Shroud of Turin, perhaps the most hotly debated relic in all of Christianity, and the fossils purported to confirm humanity’s “missing link,” the Piltdown Man. Steers also discusses two remarkable forgeries, the Hitler diaries and the “Oath of a Freeman,” and famous conspiracy theories alleging that Franklin D. Roosevelt had prior knowledge of the planned attack on Pearl Harbor and that the details of Lincoln’s assassination are recorded in missing pages from John Wilkes Booth’s journal. The controversies that Steers presents show that there are two major factors involved in the success of a hoax or forgery—greed and the desire to believe. Though all of the counterfeits and conspiracies featured in Hoax have been scientifically debunked, some remain fixed in many people’s minds as truth. As Steers points out, the success of these frauds highlights a disturbing fact: If true history fails to entertain the public, it is likely to be ignored or forgotten.

Against Authenticity

Author : Simon Feldman
Publisher : Lexington Books
ISBN 13 : 0739182013
Total Pages : 217 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (391 download)

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Book Synopsis Against Authenticity by : Simon Feldman

Download or read book Against Authenticity written by Simon Feldman and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2014-12-11 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Be true to yourself”—it is a dictum so ubiquitous that it can seem like both philosophical wisdom and an empty truism. Should we aspire to an ideal of living authentically? What does it mean to be true to yourself? Against Authenticity: Why You Shouldn't Be Yourself is a philosophical exploration and critique of the ideal of authenticity. Simon Feldman argues that if being true to ourselves is a matter of maintaining a strong will, being psychologically independent, achieving self-knowledge, or being morally conscientious, then the best lives we can lead should be expected to involve substantial inauthenticity. Feldman suggests that various construals of the ideal of authenticity presuppose metaphysically confused notions of the self (for example, that there is a determinate “true self”) and that under the guise of indisputable wisdom the ideal perpetuates both objectionably relativistic as well as reactionary moral thinking.Feldman concludes that the ideal of authenticity is one that we would be better off abandoning, independent of our other moral or ethical commitments. With implications for every reader's conception of authenticity and identity, Against Authenticity is an exciting challenge for students and scholars of ethics, metaethics, metaphysics, and moral psychology.

Impostors

Author : Christopher L. Miller
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022659114X
Total Pages : 253 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (265 download)

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Book Synopsis Impostors by : Christopher L. Miller

Download or read book Impostors written by Christopher L. Miller and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2018-12-10 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Miller takes us on an exciting tour of postcolonial and world literature, guiding us through the literary maze of the real and the pretenders to the real.” —Ngugi wa Thiong’o, author of Wizard of the Crow Writing a new page in the surprisingly long history of literary deceit, Impostors examines a series of literary hoaxes, deceptions that involved flagrant acts of cultural appropriation. This book looks at authors who posed as people they were not, in order to claim a different ethnic, class, or other identity. These writers were, in other words, literary usurpers and appropriators who trafficked in what Christopher L. Miller terms the “intercultural hoax.” In the United States, such hoaxes are familiar. Forrest Carter’s The Education of Little Tree and JT LeRoy’s Sarah are two infamous examples. Miller’s contribution is to study hoaxes beyond our borders, employing a comparative framework and bringing French and African identity hoaxes into dialogue with some of their better-known American counterparts. In France, multiculturalism is generally eschewed in favor of universalism, and there should thus be no identities (in the American sense) to steal. However, as Miller demonstrates, this too is a ruse: French universalism can only go so far and do so much. There is plenty of otherness to appropriate. This French and Francophone tradition of imposture has never received the study it deserves. Taking a novel approach to this understudied tradition, Impostors examines hoaxes in both countries, finding similar practices of deception and questions of harm. “In this fascinating study of intercultural literary hoaxes, Christopher L. Miller provides a useful, brief history of American literary impostures as a backdrop for his investigation of France’s literary history of ‘ethnic usurpation.’” —Henry Louis Gates, Jr., New York Times–bestselling author

The Great Moon Hoax

Author : Stephen Krensky
Publisher : Carolrhoda Books
ISBN 13 : 0761351108
Total Pages : 44 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (613 download)

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Book Synopsis The Great Moon Hoax by : Stephen Krensky

Download or read book The Great Moon Hoax written by Stephen Krensky and published by Carolrhoda Books. This book was released on 2011-01-01 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two newsboys in 1830s New York sell copies of the New York Sun reporting that a powerful telescope has found exotic animals and structures on the moon. Based on a true story.

The Da Vinci Hoax

Author : Carl E. Olson
Publisher : Ignatius Press
ISBN 13 : 1681494809
Total Pages : 231 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (814 download)

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Book Synopsis The Da Vinci Hoax by : Carl E. Olson

Download or read book The Da Vinci Hoax written by Carl E. Olson and published by Ignatius Press. This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown's best selling novel, purports to be more than fiction: it claims to be based on fact and scholarly research. Brown wants his readers to believe that he is revealing the long-concealed truth about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and early Christianity, a truth that he says has been suppressed by the malevolent and conspiratorial forces of the Catholic Church. The novel alleges that there has been throughout history a secret group of true followers of a Gnostic Jesus and his wife, Mary Magdalene, the true "Holy Grail." Almost everything most Christians and non-Christians think they know about Jesus, according to Dan Brown, is completely wrong, the result of Catholic propaganda designed to hide the truth from the world. But are The Da Vinci Code's claims fact or just plain fiction? Is the novel well-researched as claimed? What is the truth about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and the early Church? Has the Catholic Church distorted the real Jesus? Why is the novel so popular? What about the anti-Catholic, anti-Christian agenda behind the novel? Best selling author Carl Olson and journalist Sandra Miesel answer these and other important questions. Their painstaking research intoThe Da Vinci Code and its sources reveals some surprising truths. No one who has read or heard about The Da Vinci Code should miss this provocative and illuminating book.

On Decline

Author : Andrew Potter
Publisher : Biblioasis
ISBN 13 : 1771963956
Total Pages : 72 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (719 download)

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Book Synopsis On Decline by : Andrew Potter

Download or read book On Decline written by Andrew Potter and published by Biblioasis. This book was released on 2021-08-17 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Winnipeg Free Press Top Read of 2021 What if David Bowie really was holding the fabric of the universe together? The death of David Bowie in January 2016 was a bad start to a year that got a lot worse: war in Syria, the Zika virus, terrorist attacks in Brussels and Nice, the Brexit vote—and the election of Donald Trump. The end-of-year wraps declared 2016 “the worst … ever.” Four even more troubling years later, the question of our apocalypse had devolved into a tired social media cliché. But when COVID-19 hit, journalist and professor of public policy Andrew Potter started to wonder: what if The End isn’t one big event, but a long series of smaller ones? In On Decline, Potter surveys the current problems and likely future of Western civilization (spoiler: it’s not great). Economic stagnation and the slowing of scientific innovation. Falling birth rates and environmental degradation. The devastating effects of cultural nostalgia and the havoc wreaked by social media on public discourse. Most acutely, the various failures of Western governments in their responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. If the legacy of the Enlightenment and its virtues—reason, logic, science, evidence—has run its course, how and why has it happened? And where do we go from here?

Keep It Fake

Author : Eric Wilson
Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 0374181020
Total Pages : 241 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (741 download)

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Book Synopsis Keep It Fake by : Eric Wilson

Download or read book Keep It Fake written by Eric Wilson and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2015-05-05 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shoot straight from the hip. Tell it like it is. Keep it real. We love these commands, especially in America, because they invoke what we love to believe: that there is an authentic self to which we can be true. But while we mock Tricky Dick and Slick Willie, we are inventing identities on Facebook, paying thousands for plastic surgeries, tuning into news that simply verifies our opinions. This is frontier forthrightness gone dreamy: reality bites, after all, and faith-based initiatives trump reality-based ones, and becoming disillusioned is a downer. In his new book, part memoir, part cultural analysis, Keep It Fake: Inventing an Authentic Life, Eric G. Wilson clarifies this confusion. He draws on neuroscience, psychology, sociology, philosophy, art, film, literature, and his own life to explore the possibility that there's no such thing as unwavering reality. Whether our left brains are shaping the raw data of our right into fabulous stories, or we are so saturated by society's conventions that we're always acting out prefab scripts, we can't help but be phony. But are some fakes more real than others? Are certain lies true? In lively prose—honest, provocative, erudite, witty, wide-ranging (as likely to riff on Bill Murray as to contemplate Plato)—Keep It Fakeanswers these questions, uncovering bracing truths about what it means to be human and helping us turn our necessary lying into artful living.

The Great Pyramid Hoax

Author : Scott Creighton
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1591437903
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (914 download)

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Book Synopsis The Great Pyramid Hoax by : Scott Creighton

Download or read book The Great Pyramid Hoax written by Scott Creighton and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-12-15 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reveals how the only hard evidence that dates the Great Pyramid--the quarry marks discovered by Colonel Vyse in 1837--was forged • Includes evidence from the time of the discovery of the marks: Vyse’s private field notes, surveys, facsimile drawings, and eye-witness testimony • Explains why Vyse was driven to perpetrate a fraud inside the Great Pyramid • Examines recent chemical analysis of the marks and high-definition photos to reveal errors and other anomalies within the forged Khufu cartouche Despite millennia of fame, the origins of the Great Pyramid of Giza are shrouded in mystery. Believed to be the tomb of an Egyptian king, even though no remains have ever been found, its construction date of roughly 2550 BCE is tied to only one piece of evidence: the crudely painted marks within the pyramid’s hidden chambers that refer to the 4th Dynasty king Khufu, discovered in 1837 by Colonel Howard Vyse and his team. Using evidence from the time of the discovery of these “quarry marks”--including surveys, facsimile drawings and Vyse’s private field notes--along with high definition photos of the actual marks, Scott Creighton reveals how and why the marks were faked. He investigates the anomalous and contradictory orthography of the quarry marks through more than 75 photos and illustrations, showing how they radically depart from the established canon of quarry marks from this period. He explains how the orientation of the Khufu cartouche contradicts ancient Egyptian writing convention and how one of the signs is from a later period. Analyzing Vyse’s private diary, he reveals Vyse’s forgery instructions to his two assistants, Raven and Hill, and what the anachronistic sign should have been. He examines recent chemical analysis of the marks along with the eye-witness testimony of Humphries Brewer, who worked with Vyse at Giza in 1837 and saw forgery take place. Exploring Vyse’s background, including his electoral fraud to become a member of the British Parliament, he explains why he was driven to perpetrate a fraud inside the Great Pyramid. Proving Zecharia Sitchin’s claim that the quarry marks are forgeries and removing the only physical evidence that dates the Great Pyramid’s construction to the reign of Khufu, Creighton’s study strikes down one of the most fundamental assertions of orthodox Egyptologists and reopens long-standing questions about the Great Pyramid’s true age, who really built it, and why.

Authenticity: The Cultural History of a Political Concept

Author : Maiken Umbach
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 331968566X
Total Pages : 144 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (196 download)

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Book Synopsis Authenticity: The Cultural History of a Political Concept by : Maiken Umbach

Download or read book Authenticity: The Cultural History of a Political Concept written by Maiken Umbach and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-11-23 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Authenticity is everywhere: political leaders invoke the idea to gain our support, advertisers use it to sell their products. But is authenticity a dangerous hoax? What is, and is not, authentic has been hotly debated ever since the concept was invented. Many academics have sought to "unmask" authenticity claims as deceptive. This book takes a different approach. In chapters covering historical and contemporary examples, the authors explore why authenticity, real or imagined, exercises such a powerful hold on our imaginations. The chapters trace how invocations of authenticity borrow from one another, across arenas such as philosophy and theology, encounters with nature, leisure, and mass consumption, political and corporate leadership, left-wing and right-wing ideologies. This cultural history of authenticity is of interest to academic and lay readers alike, who are interested in the significance and history of a concept that shapes how we understand ourselves and the world we live in.

Sting in the Tale

Author : Antoinette LaFarge
Publisher : Doppelhouse Press
ISBN 13 : 9781733957953
Total Pages : 416 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (579 download)

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Book Synopsis Sting in the Tale by : Antoinette LaFarge

Download or read book Sting in the Tale written by Antoinette LaFarge and published by Doppelhouse Press. This book was released on 2021-08-19 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An illustrated survey of artist hoaxes, including impersonations, fabula, cryptoscience, and forgeries, researched and written by an expert "fictive-art" practitioner. The shift from the early information age to our 'infocalypse' era of rampant misinformation has given rise to an art form that probes this confusion, foregrounding wild creativity as a way to reframe assumptions about both fiction and art in contemporary culture. At its center, this "fictive art" (LaFarge's term) is secured as fact by employing the language and display methods of history and science. Using typically evidentiary objects such as documentary photographs and videos, presumptively historical artifacts and relics, didactics, lectures, events, and expert opinions in technical language, artists create a constellation of manufactured evidence attesting to the artwork's central narrative. This dissimulation is temporary, with a clear "tell" often surprisingly revealed in a self-outing moment. With all its attendant consequences of mistrust, outrage, and rejection, this genre of art with a sting in its tale is a radical form whose time has come.

Fake Accounts

Author : Lauren Oyler
Publisher : Catapult
ISBN 13 : 1646221249
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (462 download)

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Book Synopsis Fake Accounts by : Lauren Oyler

Download or read book Fake Accounts written by Lauren Oyler and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2022-02-08 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS’ CHOICE * A WASHINGTON POST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR "An invigorating work, deadly precise in its skewering of people, places and things . . . Stylish, despairing and very funny, Fake Accounts . . . adroitly maps the dwindling gap between the individual and the world." —Katie Kitamura, The New York Times Book Review A woman in a tailspin discovers that her boyfriend is an anonymous online conspiracy theorist in this “absolutely brilliant take on the bizarre and despicable ways the internet has warped our perception of reality” (Elle, One of the Most Anticipated Books of the Year). On the eve of Donald Trump's inauguration, a young woman snoops through her boyfriend's phone and makes a startling discovery: he's an anonymous internet conspiracy theorist, and a popular one at that. Already fluent in internet fakery, irony, and outrage, she's not exactly shocked by the revelation. Actually, she's relieved--he was always a little distant--and she plots to end their floundering relationship while on a trip to the Women's March in DC. But this is only the first in a series of bizarre twists that expose a world whose truths are shaped by online lies. Suddenly left with no reason to stay in New York and increasingly alienated from her friends and colleagues, our unnamed narrator flees to Berlin, embarking on her own cycles of manipulation in the deceptive spaces of her daily life, from dating apps to expat meetups, open-plan offices to bureaucratic waiting rooms. She begins to think she can't trust anyone--shouldn't the feeling be mutual? Narrated with seductive confidence and subversive wit, Fake Accounts challenges the way current conversations about the self and community, delusions and gaslighting, and fiction and reality play out in the internet age.

Honor Lost

Author : Norma Khouri
Publisher : Beyond Words/Atria Books
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 236 pages
Book Rating : 4.X/5 (4 download)

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Book Synopsis Honor Lost by : Norma Khouri

Download or read book Honor Lost written by Norma Khouri and published by Beyond Words/Atria Books. This book was released on 2003 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dalia was a young, beautiful, Arabian Muslim living with her family in Amman, Jordan. This text gives a harrowing account by a Jordanian woman of the honour-killing of her lifelong friend at the hands of her own father, after she fell in love with a young Catholic man.

A Lost Colony Hoax

Author : Brandon Fullam
Publisher : McFarland
ISBN 13 : 1476644470
Total Pages : 206 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (766 download)

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Book Synopsis A Lost Colony Hoax by : Brandon Fullam

Download or read book A Lost Colony Hoax written by Brandon Fullam and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2021-11-04 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On November 8, 1937, a tourist from California named L. E. Hammond walked onto the campus of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, carrying a 21-pound rock he had accidentally stumbled upon in North Carolina. The barely-legible inscription on the rock appeared to be a lengthy message from Eleanor Dare, mother of Virginia Dare, and it was dated 1591. The inscription told of the trials and tribulations endured by the English colonists after their departure from Roanoke Island in 1587. The authenticity of that stone, commonly referred to as the Chowan River Dare Stone, has remained an open question since its appearance in 1937. Carefully researched and documented, this book finally provides conclusive evidence that the Chowan River Dare Stone is a clever 20th century fraud. In doing so, the book also tells the fascinating story of the Dare Stone and exposes the orchestration of the hoax and its shadowy perpetrators.

The Forger's Spell

Author : Edward Dolnick
Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 0061844594
Total Pages : 543 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (618 download)

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Book Synopsis The Forger's Spell by : Edward Dolnick

Download or read book The Forger's Spell written by Edward Dolnick and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 543 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Bestseller “Dolnick brilliantly re-creates the circumstances that made possible one of the most audacious frauds of the 20th century. And in doing so Dolnick plumbs the nature of fraud itself . . . an incomparable page turner.” —Boston Globe As riveting as a World War II thriller, The Forger’s Spell is the true story of Johannes Vermeer and the small-time Dutch painter who dared to impersonate him centuries later. For seven years a no-account painter named Han van Meegeren managed to pass off his paintings as those of one of the most beloved and admired artists who ever lived. As Edward Dolnick reveals, his true genius lay in psychological manipulation, and he came within inches of fooling the world. Instead, he landed in an Amsterdam court on trial for his life. The Forger’s Spell is the gripping, true tale of this almost perfect crime.