Using examples from different historical contexts, this book examines the relationship between class, nationalism, modernity and the agrarian myth. Essentializing rural identity, traditional culture and quotidian resistance, both aristocratic/plebeian and pastoral/Darwinian forms of agrarian myth discourse inform struggles waged 'from above' and 'from below', surfacing in peasant movements, film and travel writing. Film depictions of royalty, landowner and colonizer as disempowered, 'ordinary' or well-disposed towards 'those below', whose interests they share, underwrite populism and nationalism. Although these ideologies replaced the cosmopolitanism of the Grand Tour, twentieth century travel literature continued to reflect a fear of vanishing rural 'otherness' abroad, combined with the arrival there of the mass tourist, the plebeian from home.

Fake News in Digital Cultures presents a new approach to understanding disinformation and misinformation in contemporary digital communication, arguing that fake news is not an alien phenomenon undertaken by bad actors, but a logical outcome of contemporary digital and popular culture, conceptual changes meaning and truth, and shifts in the social practice of trust, attitude and creativity. Looking not to the problems of the present era but towards the continuing development of a future digital media ecology, the authors explore the emergence of practices of deliberate disinformation. This includes the circulation of misleading content or misinformation, the development of new technological applications such as the deepfake, and how they intersect with conspiracy theories, populism, global crises, popular disenfranchisement, and new practices of regulating misleading content and promoting new media and digital literacies.

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 who believes in the paranormal? Based on extensive research and their own unique personal experiences, Christopher Bader, Joseph Baker and Carson Mencken reveal that a significant number of Americans hold these beliefs, and that for better or worse, we undoubtedly live in a paranormal America. Readers will join the authors as they participate in psychic and palm readings, and have their auras photographed, join a Bigfoot hunt, follow a group of celebrity ghost hunters as they investigate claims of a haunted classroom, and visit a support group for alien abductees. The second edition includes new and updated research based on findings from the Baylor Religion survey regarding America's relationship with the paranormal. Drawing on these diverse and compelling sources of data, the book offers an engaging account of the social, personal, and statistical stories of American paranormal beliefs and experiences. It examines topics such as the popularity of paranormal beliefs in the United States, the ways in which these beliefs relate to each other, whether paranormal beliefs will give rise to a new religion, and how believers in the paranormal differ from "average" Americans. Brimming with fascinating anecdotes and provocative new findings, Paranormal America offers an entertaining yet authoritative examination of a growing segment of American religious culture.

New Lands was the second nonfiction book of the author Charles Fort, written in 1925. It deals primarily with astronomical anomalies. Fort expands in this book on his theory about the Super-Sargasso Sea - a place where earthly things supposedly materialize in order to rain down on Earth - as well as developing an idea that there are continents above the skies of Earth. As evidence, he cites a number of anomalous phenomena, including strange "mirages" of land masses, groups of people, and animals in the skies. He also continues his attacks on scientific dogma, citing a number of mysterious stars and planets that scientists failed to account for.

Why does an "X" stand for a kiss?Which fruits are in Juicy Fruit(R) gum?Why do people cry at happy endings?Why do you never see baby pigeons?

Pop-culture guru David Feldman demystifies these topics and so much more in Why Don't Cats Like to Swim? -- the unchallenged source of answers to civilization's most perplexing questions. Part of the Imponderables(R) series, Feldman's book arms readers with information about everyday life -- from science, history, and politics to sports, television, and radio -- that encyclopedias, dictionaries, and almanacs just don't have. Where else will you learn what makes women open their mouths when applying mascara?

Does our universe exist inside of a computer? Have the strange phenomena of quantum physics finally been explained? Not IMPOSSIBLE demonstrates that the surprising answer may be Yes But the material world is real we insist, knocking on wood. How can this all be just information inside of a computer? Surely that's impossible Climb aboard as computer science and AI researcher, G. Wells Hanson, takes us on the seemingly impossible journey from our universe, into the depths of a computerized universe. As you ride, your fingers are pried loose from your current ideas of reality. Watch as your material world slowly begins to fade. You will travel through the machinery of the worlds of human thinking, quantum reality, the brain, and the mind. Finally, you enter a universe programmed within a computer, where the strange phenomena that appear there provides an explanation for the mysterious quantum physics that has puzzled humankind for a century. Shaun Holmes, MA, and high school math teacher, describes the book as ...an intellectual thrill-ride that takes us from our everyday world, to a place where I question my very existence...and there's no going back

The crop circles which appear in British fields on short summer nights have quickly become the most famous works of modern art on Earth. Perfectly conceived, priceless and expertly crafted by artists unknown, the formations are an environmental triumph - the highest form of spin in art. This small volume, by architect, inventor and world-famous crop circle commentator Michael Glickman, tells the central tale of the evolution of design and form within this beautiful and quintessentially British mystery. WOODEN BOOKS are small but packed with information. "Fascinating" FINANCIAL TIMES. "Beautiful" LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS. "Rich and Artful" THE LANCET. "Genuinely mind-expanding" FORTEAN TIMES. "Excellent" NEW SCIENTIST. "Stunning" NEW YORK TIMES. Small books, big ideas.