Title: A colossal hoax
Subtitle: the giant from Cardiff that fooled America
First published: 2008
Description: The story of the Cardiff Giant reveals many things about America in the post-Civil War years. After four years of destruction on an unimagined scale, Americans had increasingly turned their attention to the renewal of progress. But the story of the Cardiff Giant seemed to shed light on a complicated, mysterious past, and for a time scientists, clergymen, newspaper editors, and ordinary Americans struggled to make sense of it. Hucksters, of course, did their best to take advantage of it. The Cardiff Giant was one of the leading questions of the day, and how citizens answered it said much about Americans in 1869 as well as about America more generally. --from publisher description
Subjects: History, Impostors and imposture, Cardiff giant, Forgery of antiquities, Antiquities, New york (n.y.), antiquities
Places: Cardiff, New York (State), Cardiff (N.Y.)
Time periods: 19th century
LC classification: F129.C27 T75 2008