Hoax: A History of Deception: 5,000 Years of Fakes, Forgeries, and Fallacies

by Ian Tattersall, Peter Névraumont

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 tell 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 among other stories told chronologically. It covers the worlds of art, science, literature, journalism and finance.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, True Crime, Crime, Anthropology, Science, Social Science

256 pages, Hardcover

Published March 20, 2018

Reviews

[Audrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book covers fifty instances of hoaxes and deceptions in chronological order. Some of the hoaxes are very vague, failing to detail a single case and instead giving a broad generalization of a type of deception. Some cases are not hoaxes at all. It’s more a string of history lessons than a true look at hoaxes through the years.

There was something about it that irked me a bit, and I’ve been trying to figure out what it is. Some of the writing comes off as pretentious. It makes a lot of assumptions about people’s motives that I didn’t always accept. So I recommend skimming it and seeing if anything catches your attention.

Clean content

[David Ward · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hoax: A History of Deception – 5,000 Years of Fakes, Forgeries, and Fallacies by Ian Tattersall and Peter Nevraumont (Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers 2018) (001.95). This is one absolutely pointless exercise of a book. The premise sounds interesting, but the author fails to deliver. Each entry in this book is written in such generalities and with such little detail that the effect is the same as reading the “clickbait” blurbs on the internet. In other words, the authors have provided such a nominal amount of information on the promised subjects that it practically makes turning the pages a waste of time. Don't bother with this volume; you could collect the same amount of information in twenty seconds on the net. My rating: 4/10, finished 12/20/18.

[Sougeitu · Rating 5 out of 5]

經典口水書，而且出電子版了，好評如潮！

反正就是有意思，可以挑自己興趣領域內的幾篇看。雖然講得比較籠統，但畢竟是口水書不是研究文獻嘛。
我特別喜歡兩位作者在書裡留的彩蛋。

[Thomas Radigan · Rating 2 out of 5]

But it felt more like a bunch of miscellany thrown together than a real historical accounting, and the entries show little if any sign of original research. For example, it mentions the possibility of a real Pope Joan, a woman somehow becoming Pope of the Catholic Church and nobody knew until she got pregnant. (The reality is probably there might have been a woman who was the power behind an actual male Pope. And there are real-life women who have impersonated men, but common sense if nothing else suggests they would never have gotten pregnant). Surprisingly some famous hoaxes never made the cut, such as the supposed finding of space aliens in 1947 and the "black mailbox". Also not mentioned is how Dan Rather was forced into leaving CBS when it was revealed he knowingly tried to "prove" George W. Bush's being AWOL from National Guard service using obviously faked documents, even though the book mentioned Jayson Blair who faked being journalists by stealing others' news stories. The book falsely claims that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction and that he never assisted Muslim terrorists-myths that have been exploded elsewhere.

The idea was good, but it was badly done.

[Ronnie Cramer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was looking forward to reading "an entertaining collection of the most audacious and underhanded deceptions in the history of mankind" but the ponderous writing style and questionable editorial choices managed to kill most of my enthusiasm.

[Jenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I honestly probably would have rated this higher, but I just finished Bunk by Kevin Young and it blew me away. This book probably suffered a little in comparison.

[Jamie Fuller · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise was really good – short (two or three page) articles on a historical hoax or fraud, with plenty of pictures. The authors covered a tremendous amount of ground in terms of the types of hoaxes, the geographic region in which the stories took place and spanning as much of history as possible. Many of the stories contained connections to other stories, and they thoughtfully noted anyone who showed up in a story who was in another story elsewhere in the book.

For all those good points, however, the book had some serious flaws. First and foremost, the stories were drastically uneven. Some were excellent – interesting story, plenty of material, tightly written. Others were very short, severely lacking in any kind of useful or interesting details or contained random, odd and out-of-style comments or opinions from the authors. Moreover, it didn’t necessarily seem to be the uninteresting ones that were short and vague.

Each story was roughly assigned to a “category,” but the categories were vague and/or didn’t really apply, in my opinion. This is definitely a good book to flip through – enjoy the really good stories and just skim or skip the weak ones.

[Howard Gibbins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hoax takes the reader on a very interesting journey through the mids of perpetrators, as well as others who have had something to do with hoaxes, cons, etc. It is an extremely interesting read that will surprise you. In all the authors examine 50 hoaxes starting in 2800 BCE and going through to present day, dealing with such topics as The End of the Word, the myth of Noah's ark, Gladiators vs. Professional Wrestlers, various religious topics such as sacred relics, the Shroud of Turin, Priory of Sion, etc. They also cover the typical ones such as the Loch Ness monster, Bigfoot, and Piltdown Man. But in case you might think this is mainly about things that happened many years ago, they also looks at the vaccination debate, homeopathy, race, fake memoirs, fake bomb detectors, and much more..

I found this book to be quite informative, and even though I had heard of some of these topics before, others were brand new to me. The chapters are overly long, and present the information in a well written and concise format. I can see this book being valuable to students in junior and senior high school especially considering the amount of misinformation that is present in the world today via the internet.

Well worth the read! I hope the authors consider doing a second volume as there has to be more hoaxes they didn't have a chance to cover.

[Jim Gallen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Deception is as old as the Garden of Eden. “Hoax” consists of descriptions of 50 high profile hoaxes through the ages. Some are understandable, like examples of artistic frauds. Some are well known and historically significant like the man who never was but was washed on the Spanish shore to deceive the Germans as to the target of the next invasion and the Dreyfus Affair that shook the French Army of the late Nineteenth Century. The section on the Loch Ness Monster is a recapitulation of a long-standing mystery. One that angered me is the account of the fake bomb detector that was sold to allies in the Middle East.

Each entry is about four pages and is supplemented by pictures. It is an easy, quick, low intensity read of the interesting, entertaining and informative.

I did receive a copy of this book through the Amazon Vine program.

[Kay Hudson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up Hoax: A History of Deception, by Ian Tattersall and Peter Nevraumont, at my local Half Price Book store. Broken into 50 chapters, the book covers everything from harmless and amusing exploits to wild conspiracy theories to the downright dangerous (homeopathy and anti-vaccine hysteria, two bits of nonsense I find very disturbing). Faked photographs, faked deaths, successful and unsuccessful forgeries, scams and con games, flat and hollow earth ideas, military trickery and so on all pop up in the book. In this age of “fake news” and apparent willingness to believe Big Lies, there’s a lot to be learned from hoaxes of the past.

[Phankawee Mukdaprakorn · Rating 4 out of 5]

“มนุษย์ทุกคนต่างเกิดมาพร้อมพรสวรรค์ในการหลอกลวง”

ไม่ได้อ่านหนังสือที่อ่านได้ทุกวันติดๆกันงี้มานานแล้ว เล่มนี้คือรวมเรื่องการหลอกลวงต่างๆ ตั้งแต่อดีต
- เรื่องวันสิ้นโลกที่มีใหม่มาเรื่อยๆ ตั้งแต่ 2,800 BC
- กลาดิเอเตอร์ที่คล้ายกับนักมวยปล้ำ
- การปลอมชาติกำเนิด
- การหลอกขายสกุลเงินของเกาะที่ไม่มีจริง
- การปลอมดนตรี
- การใช้เครื่องตรวจระเบิดปลอม
มีอยู่ 50 เรื่องอ่ะ สนุกดี บางเรื่องก็น่าเชื่อเลยว่าคนจะเชื่อ แต่คนเขียนก็อธิบายบริบทตอนนั้น(แบบจิกกัด) ก็เลยเข้าใจได้ บางเรื่องก็ล้ำจัดจริงๆ เหมือนดูหนังต้มตุ๋นหลายๆเรื่องในเล่มเดียว

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

An entertaining read if you want some hilarious, audacious, and sometimes malicious hoaxes that have been committed throughout human history. I found the archaeology hoaxes and forged art hoaxes the most interesting; and while there were "classics" covered, there were plenty of stories that were new to me! Might be touchy for some people as some topics include anti-vaccines, the Shroud of Turin, cryptozoology, and politics and news sources.

[Ruth E. R. · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book itself is a hoax, chock full of non-facts and flat, myopic points of view on what it calls “historical.” A prime example of Neil Postman’s visionary “Amusing Ourselves to Death.” Which is the prime motivation for just about every hoax, n’est pas? A disappointment in a pretty package. Contains dozens of blurbs, many composed about rumors rather than actual events, without supporting evidence and without any details or apparent research on the crimes or motivations or consequences.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this is one of those books you see at various booksellers (in this case it was Barnes and Noble) as a Bargain book that one can read through real quick (I just got sidetracked) the stories in here are pretty interesting. My favorite story is one involving Edgar Alan Poe hoaxing a newspaper because the same paper stole the plot of one of his stories without credit.

[Anna]

fun and interesting

This book chronicles hoaxes from ancient times up to the present. I guess there always were and always will be hoaxers. The book is nicely illustrated and very well written.

[James Bittle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting topic(s), but not exactly fun to read.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delightful look at a number of popular & innovative fakes, forgeries and fallacies from throughout human history. My only problem with this book is that it ended far, far, far too soon.

[Neeuqdrazil · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun little romp through the history of deception. Light and fluffy, but not badly written.

[W.M. · Rating 3 out of 5]

整本都在講很有趣或想想真的很奇妙的騙局案例，做為無用小知識來看很有趣

[Mint · Rating 3 out of 5]

เรื่องน่าสนุกมาก มีหลายเรื่องที่ทำให้เราไปกูเกิ้ลอ่านต่อเลย

แต่รู้สึกว่าสำนวนแปลยังไม่ค่อยลื่น คือรู้สึกว่าคนเขียนโทนค่อนข้าง sarcastic แต่รับรู้ไม่ค่อยได้ในฉบับแปลไทยเลย

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well researched, a little opinionated but not overbearing. Well written, easy to follow.

[Theresa · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. As others noted, the writing style isn't up to the subject matter.

[PRJ Greenwell · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's good, but you get the pervasive feeling that it could've been better.

[Charissa Wilkinson]

Did Not Receive.

[Niadam Kaday · Rating 5 out of 5]

เขียนได้ดี เล่าเรื่องให้เข้าใจง่าย แต่เรื่องหลอกลวงหลายอย่างเหมือนผู้เขียนพยายามจะไม่พูดถึง เช่น เรื่องศาสนา ซึ่งก็เข้าใจได้

[Peggy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok read. Episodic. Got it out of the library so my father-in-law could read short episodes. Some are quite entertaining, some less so. Well written.