Title: Deluders of the People
Description: Deluders of the People is a satirical, open-source book by Martin Marprelate. It stages an inaugural convention of America’s past and present, where figures such as Johnny Carson, Washington Irving, John Rodgers, John Knox, and the Headless Horseman expose the contradictions of democracy, religion, commerce, and law. Blending history and performance, the work asks what happens when a republic built on liberty and equality is sold to corporate power and authoritarian control. Written for readers disillusioned with American exceptionalism, it is both a literary experiment and a political critique, published under a public-domain license to ensure wide accessibility through open repositories such as Zenodo and Archive.org.
Subjects: satire; Headless Horseman; American exceptionalism; political dissent; democracy crisis; authoritarianism; corruption; law and power; religion and politics; American history; open source literature; public domain book
Places: United States; New York City; Wall Street; Valley Forge; Morristown, New Jersey; Philadelphia; Washington, D.C.; Nebraska; Stamford, Connecticut; Hollywood, California
People: Johnny Carson; Ed McMahon; George Washington; Martha Washington; Washington Irving; John Rodgers; Charles Inglis; John Knox; William Duer; Dick Cavett; Rip Van Winkle; Headless Horseman; Darth Vader; Albert Einstein; Andy Griffith; Pablo Picasso; Alfred Hitchcock; Shakespeare (William Shakespeare); Beethoven; Dr. Wiki (Wikipedia personified)
Time periods: American Revolution (1775–1783); 18th century; 20th century; 21st century; In the future… or, maybe, now