The Con Man's Formula: Hope + Fear = Desperation From the Gilded Age, through WWII, America was rife with ne'er-do-wells with their never-ending search for the next Big Score. Between 1850, and 1950 lawlessness melded with ingenuity, fueled by optimism and ruthlessness: America was dangerous, and buzzing, and where opportunity came to take ......
Utilizing overlooked resources, Arrested Adolescence offers insight and nuance into the mind of Nathan Leopold, a man who committed cold-blooded murder as a teenager and then convinced the world to believe in rehabilitation that he never experienced.
In a society of strangers, there develops what can be called crimes of mobility -- forms of criminality rare in traditional societies: bigamy, the confidence game, and blackmail, for example. What they have in common is a kind of fraudulent role-playing, which the new society makes possible.
An inside look at the unique balance the Amish strike between tradition and the demands of the modern world. From technology to social forces, the Amish face an evolving modern world. Their facility in determining whether to accept, reject, or bargain with the options that challenge them allows for measured change that sustains their social ......
Fear and ignorance have run rampant throughout human history. This book aims to expose the roots of such mental maladies as witchcraft and its persecution, asceticism, and unbridled hedonism, the crusades and millenarianism, nazism's monumental conceit, and the tactics of McCarthyism, as well as the belief in nostrum vendors and bogus messiahs.
Myths of Origins in the History of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Conflict
The Eve of Spain demonstrates how the telling and retelling of Spain's founding myth played a central role in the formation of that country's national identity. King Roderick, the last Visigoth king of Spain, rapes (or seduces) La Cava, the daughter of his friend and counselor, Count Julian. The count returns to Africa, gathers an army of Moors, ......
Best known for his many popular books about science and mathematics, the author demonstrates that his interests encompass nearly everything else as well.
She might be one of the greatest con artists of all time. Cassie Chadwick conned millions of dollars out of banks by claiming to be the illegitimate daughter of Andrew Carnegie. It was a simple but brilliant con that reflects the ethos and the high-flying greed of the Gilded Age.
Greed in the Gilded Age is a Gatsby-esque tale of mystery, money, sex, and scandal. 'Millionaire' had just entered the American lexicon and Cassie Chadwick was front page news, becoming a media sensation before mass media, even eclipsing President Roosevelt's inauguration. Using these newspaper articles, Hazelgrove tells the story of one of the ......
Includes stories on the female stranger of Gadsby's Tavern in Alexandria, the mysterious stone showers in Newport, the ghost hound of the Blue Ridge, Mad Lucy of Williamsburg, and the spirits of native sons Thomas Jefferson, Robert E Lee, and Edgar Allan Poe.
David Dark, one of today's most respected thinkers and cultural critics at the intersection of faith and culture, returns to his classic text to bring us a revised, expanded, and reframed edition. With the same keen observation and candor, he reveals that religion is witness to everything we're up to, for better or worse.
Norman Austin has organized his analysis of classical Greek myths around Lacan's dichotomy between (ineffable) Being and the meanings imposed upon Being by culturally determined signifiers. The primary signifiers in myth (the gods), as projections of contradictory meanings, impel human consciousness in contradictory directions: toward heroic ......
A collection of articles which explores pseudoscience and strange religious beliefs. This book covers a range of topics - including UFOs, rainmaking, ghosts, the Big Bang, ESP, Oral Roberts, as well as the early history of spiritualism and bizarre 'trance channelling' cults.
Ghost Encounters, UFO Sightings, Bigfoot Hunts, and Other Curiosities in
The untold account of the countless Americans who believe in, or personally experience, paranormal phenomena such as ghosts, Bigfoot, UFOs and psychics Given the popularity of television shows such as Finding Bigfoot, Ghost Hunters, Supernatural, and American Horror Story, there seems to be an insatiable public hunger for mystical happenings. But ......
Ghost Encounters, UFO Sightings, Bigfoot Hunts, and Other Curiosities in
The untold account of the countless Americans who believe in, or personally experience, paranormal phenomena such as ghosts, Bigfoot, UFOs and psychics Given the popularity of television shows such as Finding Bigfoot, Ghost Hunters, Supernatural, and American Horror Story, there seems to be an insatiable public hunger for mystical happenings. But ......
In a society of strangers, there develops what can be called crimes of mobility -- forms of criminality rare in traditional societies: bigamy, the confidence game, and blackmail, for example. What they have in common is a kind of fraudulent role-playing, which the new society makes possible. This book explores the social and legal consequences of ......
Creating Effective and Trustworthy Regulation in an Age of Doubt
Why the public has lost faith in government and how it can be restored In 1964, over three-quarters of Americans trusted the federal government to do the right thing all or most of the time. By 1980, that number had plummeted to 26 percent, and Ronald Reagan won a sweeping victory for the presidency while proclaiming that government was not the ......
