Book Description
Fifty Scams and Hoaxes is a light-hearted investigation into some of the worst examples of financial skulduggery, medical quackery and ingenious hoaxing from history.
Author : Martin Fone
Publisher : Troubador Publishing Ltd
Page : 200 pages
File Size : 43,49 MB
Release : 2019-01-28
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 1789012406
Fifty Scams and Hoaxes is a light-hearted investigation into some of the worst examples of financial skulduggery, medical quackery and ingenious hoaxing from history.
Author : Nate Hendley
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 400 pages
File Size : 50,44 MB
Release : 2016-09-06
Category : Law
ISBN : 1610695860
This book examines a broad range of infamous scams, cons, swindles, and hoaxes throughout American history—and considers why human gullibility continues in an age of easy access to information. Covering American cons and hoaxes past and present, including the Great Moon Hoax of 1835, the controversy over "subliminal messaging" (do bands, filmmakers, and advertisers really put secret messages in their works?), the panic about "satanic" daycare operators in the 1980s, and recent Internet scams, this book provides a fascinating, fact-based look at infamous frauds across the centuries. Offering an engaging mix of history, sociology, and psychology, author Nate Hendley gives readers an appreciation of how prominent scams, cons, "confidence men," and hoaxes have impacted American society, past and present. Each entry details the scheme or hoax and the pertinent con artist/schemer involved, examining the sociological, cultural, political, and/or economic effect of the scams. Each topic is accompanied by a short bibliography of further reading selections. As the old saying goes, "There is a sucker born every minute"—and there has always been a keen-eyed swindler to take advantage of the situation. The Big Con: Great Hoaxes, Frauds, Grifts, and Swindles in American History explores this sordid underbelly of American civilization and invites readers to revel in the felonious experience.
Author : H. P. Wood
Publisher : Charlesbridge Publishing
Page : 179 pages
File Size : 50,18 MB
Release : 2018-10-02
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN : 1580897436
From the Trojan horse to fake news, scams have run rampant throughout history and across the globe. Some con artists do it for fun, others for profit. . . and every once in a while, a faker saves the world. In this era of daily online hoaxes, it's easy to be caught off-guard. Fakers arms kids with information, introducing them to the funniest, weirdest, and most influential cons and scams in human history. Profiles of con artists will get readers thinking about motivation and consequence, and practical tips will help protect them from falsehoods. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is--except in the case of this book!
Author : Darryl Cunningham
Publisher :
Page : 174 pages
File Size : 15,45 MB
Release : 2012
Category : Fraud in science
ISBN :
Author : Brylee Gibson
Publisher :
Page : 32 pages
File Size : 44,27 MB
Release : 2008
Category : Deception
ISBN : 9781407101552
Author : Carl Sifakis
Publisher : Facts on File
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 15,29 MB
Release : 1994-07-01
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780816030262
Tells the stories of quack cures, confidence men, automobile repair scams, practical jokes, imposters, swindlers, fraudulent scientific research, phony mediums, and newspaper hoaxes
Author : Andreas Schroeder
Publisher : McClelland & Stewart
Page : 282 pages
File Size : 49,52 MB
Release : 1999
Category : Law
ISBN : 9780771079542
Since 1991, Andreas Schroeder has been a regular on the very popular national CBC-Radio show "Basic Black" with Arthur Black. Each month, Schroeder recounts, with wry understatement, yet another outrageous scam or particularly notable rip-off, leaving his listeners speechless with disbelief, amusement, and even grudging admiration. Such was the popularity of his two previous story collections that he has done it again. Stories Include: "Another Day, Another Picasso: The decades-long career of aristocratic forger Elmyr de Hory, some of whose Picassos, Matisses, Van Goghs, and Braques still lurk in art museums and reference books, masquerading as the real thing. "Making Hay in Cathay: A damning expose of that thirteenth-century con artist, Marco Polo, which is sure to have readers questioning everything they learned in school. "Gangs That Couldn't Loot Straight: Three tales to prove that incompetence can be elevated to an art form. "Extortion by Remote Control: How a technologically inventive bomber (calling himself Dagobert Duck) managed to hold one of Germany's largest department stores hostage and baffle the police for almost two years. Each story is told in Schroeder's wicked, deadpan style, which covers a certain underlying glee at the shenanigans of truly ingenious characters - despite their questionable morals.
Author : Gordon Stein
Publisher : Gale Cengage
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 37,87 MB
Release : 1993
Category : Deception
ISBN :
Looks at scams, shams, and flim-flams that have been perpetrated in almost every field including art, business, entertainment, politics, and more.
Author : Gale Eaton
Publisher : Tilbury House Publishers and Cadent Publishing
Page : 473 pages
File Size : 18,51 MB
Release : 2016-09-06
Category : Young Adult Nonfiction
ISBN : 0884484939
What do the Trojan Horse, Piltdown Man, Keely Motor Company, and Ponzi Scheme have in common? They were all famous hoaxes, carefully designed and bolstered with false evidence. 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. Fountas & Pinnell Level Z+
Author : S. Gordon
Publisher :
Page : 490 pages
File Size : 36,24 MB
Release : 1996
Category : Fraud
ISBN : 9780747246947
Human trickery and credulity have always gone hand in hand. The author describes the most outrageous scams and cons ever perpetrated.