Anatomy of a Beast: Obsession and Myth on the Trail of BigfootPart history, part road trip, and part biography, this is the true story of a remarkable group of men whose obsession with Bigfoot turned the giant hominid into an American icon. Award-winning journalist Michael McLeod tells of Bigfoot's rise to tabloid stardom in a fast-paced account that begins with his own journey to investigate a famous 1967 film clip of a Bigfoot in a California forest. McLeod proceeds to uncover a trail of clues reaching from the late nineteenth century, when a few ambitious, imaginative naturalists and explorers synthesized historical and indigenous folklore with Darwinian ideas and speculated that a proto-hominid "missing link" might still be alive in remote areas. That speculation would eventually inspire a colorful cast of loggers, hunters, con artists, and businessmen in the twentieth century to create the modern myth of Bigfoot, all of them angling for a piece of a monster that the media and the public still can't get enough of. Told through vividly narrated interviews and anecdotes, Anatomy of a Beast offers a unique perspective on the deep roots of counterfactual thinking—and how obsession and myth are created out of it. |
Contents
9 | |
20 | |
Bluff Creek | 45 |
The Backup Man | 58 |
The Klamath Knot | 65 |
Mountain Devils | 87 |
Show Time | 107 |
Bigfoot Daze | 123 |
Cryptid Wars | 130 |
The Goblin Universe | 145 |
Reason and Truth | 158 |
Bigfoots Kitchen | 172 |
Notes | 187 |
205 | |
209 | |
Other editions - View all
Anatomy of a Beast: Obsession and Myth on the Trail of Bigfoot Michael McLeod No preview available - 2009 |
Common terms and phrases
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