We use cookies to make your experience better. To comply with the new e-Privacy directive, we need to ask for your consent to set the cookies. Learn more.
Story of Ambition in 50 Hoaxes
The con artists in this book pursued a variety of ambitions—making money, winning wars, mocking authority, finding fame, trading an ordinary life for a glamorous one—but they all chose the lowest, fastest road to get there. Every hoax is a curtain, and behind it is a deceiver operating levers and smoke machines to make us see what is not there and miss what is. As P.T. Barnum knew, you can short-circuit critical thinking in any century by telling people what they want to hear. Most scams operate on a personal scale, but some have shaped the balance of world power, inspired explorers to sail uncharted seas, derailed scientific progress, or caused terrible massacres. A HISTORY OF AMBITION IN 50 HOAXES guides us through a rogue's gallery of hustlers, liars, swindlers, imposters, scammers, pretenders, and cheats. In Gale Eaton's wide-ranging synthesis, the history of deception is a colorful tour, with surprising insights behind every curtain.
In reading thematically linked stories, as well as narrative accounts of people and events, you learn to connect the dots while exploring history. Some stories are well-known while others have slipped under the radar. This is history presented in a unique way that readers will find intriguing and easy to remember. Each story is brief, yet detailed. Even a reluctant reader will enjoy history presented in short episodes. The narrative style is easily digested, and bits are explained here and there as needed. The series feels like something you would have around the home or library for a child to pick up on their own, as a good reader, a supplement perhaps, but not as your primary history text. I especially liked learning about how inventions came about, often a mix of science and serendipity! Speaking of science, you get quite a bit of it with your history as well as geography, world cultures, and more. Loads of color photos and illustrations, a timeline, and resources at the back make this series perfect for spurring further research or for use in your unit study. It is my opinion that students as young as Grade 5 would enjoy this series, as well as middle/high schoolers. I had a chance to look through all 4 topics: hoaxes, disasters, medical discoveries, and travel. They are just fascinating, well beyond trivia. Non-fiction, with a secular or non-religious focus. ~Sara
Product Format: | Paperback |
---|---|
Brand: | Tilbury House Publishers |
Grades: | 7-AD |
ISBN: | 9780884484929 |
Length in Inches: | 9.5 |
Width in Inches: | 6.5 |
Height in Inches: | 0.5 |
Weight in Pounds: | 1.3 |