Truth: A Brief History of Total Bullsh*t
This is a book about TRUTH--and all the ways we try to avoid it--from the bestselling author of Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked It All Up. We live in a "post-truth" world, we're told. But was there ever really a golden age of truth-telling? Or have people been lying, fibbing and just plain bullsh*tting since the beginning of time? Tom Phillips, editor of a leading independent fact-checking organization, deals with this question every day. In Truth, he tells the story of how we humans have spent history lying to each other--and ourselves--about everything from business to politics to plain old geography. Along the way, he chronicles the world's oldest customer service complaint, the Great Moon Hoax of 1835 and the surprisingly dishonest career of Benjamin Franklin. Sharp, witty and with a clear-eyed view of humanity's checkered past, Truth reveals why people lie--and how we can cut through the bullsh*t.
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Community Reviews
Tom Phillips is definitely one of my favorite non-fiction authors. Prior to this read, I first jumped into his writing with "Humans: A Brief History of How We F***ed It All Up" which was such a fun mixture of historical events and hilarious thoughts and comments on lessons learned (or not!). It was the perfect combination that had me learning about historical events while also laughing my a** off - two things that normally wouldn't go together.
Following in very much the same vein, this book covers the history of bulls*** and lies that humans have told since the dawn of time. Tom explores the theory of how we are currently living in a "post-truth age", and how this theory is pretty inaccurate considering we have not been able to go a decade or less without some nonsense making it's way into the public.
"The idea that we live in a "post-truth age" would mean there was a "truth age" at some point that we can now be "post-" about". The folly of human beings...
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