12 books found
How rumors, lies, and misrepresentations shaped American history After the election of Donald Trump as president, people in the United States and across large swaths of Europe, Latin America, and Asia engaged in the most intensive discussion in modern times about falsehoods pronounced by public officials. Fake facts in their various forms have long been present in American life, particularly in its politics, public discourse, and business activities – going back to the time when the country was formed. This book explores the long tradition of fake facts, in their various guises, in American history. It is one of the first historical studies to place the long history of lies and misrepresentation squarely in the middle of American political, business, and science policy rhetoric. In Fake News Nation, James Cortada and William Aspray present a series of case studies that describe how lies and fake facts were used over the past two centuries in important instances in American history. Cortada and Aspray give readers a perspective on fake facts as they appear today and as they are likely to appear in the future.
These stories, written over the past 13 or so years, after Jim Huston retired from the practice of law, deal with a variety of subjects, characters, and life issues. They represent and contain the author's FURTHER THOUGHTS about the human condition.
In a subtle and penetrating cultural history, Patterson examines reactions to the disease through a century of American life. Readers interested in the cultural dimensions of science and medicine as well as historians, sociologists, and political scientists will be enlightened and challenged by this book.
At no time in U.S. history has there been a more effective challenge to medical expertise and authority than that mounted by the contemporary Laetrile movement. The efficacy of Laetrile has been debated for over twenty-five years, but despite vigorous opposition from the medical community, support for the purported cancer treatment continues to grow and the controversy has in recent years intensified and become highly politicized. How does one account for the continuing debate and the spectacular political growth of the movement to promote Laetrile? This and related questions are addressed by an interdisciplinary group of authors in this first scholarly analysis of the Laetrile phenomenon.