A definitive account of one of the most dominant trends in recent historical writing, "The Cultural Turn in U.S. History" takes stock of the field at the same time as it showcases exemplars of its practice. The first of this volume's three distinct sections offers a comprehensive genealogy of American cultural history, tracing its multifaceted origins, defining debates, and intersections with adjacent fields. The second section comprises previously unpublished essays by a distinguished roster of contributors who illuminate the discipline's rich potential by plumbing topics that range from nineteenth-century anxieties about greenback dollars to confidence games in 1920s Harlem, from Shirley Temple's career to the story of a Chicano community in San Diego that created a public park under a local freeway. Featuring an equally wide ranging selection of pieces that meditate on the future of the field, the final section explores such subjects as the different strains of cultural history, its relationships with arenas from mass entertainment to public policy, and the ways it has been shaped by catastrophe. Taken together, these essays represent a watershed moment in the life of a discipline, harnessing its vitality to offer a glimpse of the shape it will take in years to come.

The Light is a science fiction/thriller that begins with world war 3. As the characters drive to their destination, they are forced to take cover in a cave on a hill near Jerusalem. A flash of bright light, that they believe is a nuclear blast, actually transports the characters back to the first century at the time of Jesus Christ. Can they survive, yet find their way back home?

"The Mailbox Murders" is set in the small town of Stoney Creek, Oregon. The Chief of Police, Chuck Wagner, is put in the position of trying to find out who has been killing local residents and placing their heads in street corner mailboxes. The story has few suspects and leads until the climactic ending. The reader will be interconnected with the work of Chuck Wagner as well as his private life. Is the killer someone that's very close to the chief of police or is it someone who is above suspicion.

The P. T. Barnum Reader reveals the trailblazing American showman P. T. Barnum as, by turns, a moral reformer, a habitual hoaxer, an insightful critic, a savvy puffer, a master of images, a sparkling writer, a relentless provocateur, and an early advocate of family entertainments. Taken together, these selections paint a new and more complete portrait of this complex man than has ever been seen before. James W. Cook's The Colossal P. T. Barnum Reader is the largest collection of Barnum's works ever produced. Included are excerpts from his pseudo-autobiographical novel The Adventures of an Adventurer (1841), his European letters from 1844-46 informing readers of the New York Atlas of his regal reception overseas, and a large selection from his Ancient and Modern Humbugs of the World, Barnum's 1864-65 insider's look into the frauds of nineteenth-century American culture.

Ingenious automatons which appeared to think on their own. Dubious mermaids and wild men who resisted classification. Elegant sleight-of-hand artists who routinely exposed the secrets of their trade. These were some of the playful forms of fraud which astonished, titillated, and even outraged nineteenth-century America's new middle class, producing some of the most remarkable urban spectacles of the century.

In "The Arts of Deception," James W. Cook explores this distinctly modern mode of trickery designed to puzzle the eye and challenge the brain. Championed by the "Prince of Humbug," P. T. Barnum, these cultural puzzles confused the line between reality and illusion. Upsetting the normally strict boundaries of value, race, class, and truth, the spectacles offer a revealing look at the tastes, concerns, and prejudices of America's very first mass audiences. We are brought into the exhibition halls, theaters, galleries, and museums where imposture flourished, and into the minds of the curiosity-seekers who eagerly debated the wonders before their eyes. Cook creates an original portrait of a culture in which ambiguous objects, images, and acts on display helped define a new value system for the expanding middle class, as it confronted a complex and confusing world.