McLeod, Michael

Berkeley. 2009. June 2009. University Of California Press. 1st American Edition. Very Good in Dustjacket. 9780520255715. 23 b/w photographs. 238 pages. hardcover. Jacket photography by Frank Krahmer. keywords: History Bigfoot. FROM THE PUBLISHER - Part 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. inventory #36973 ISBN: 9780520255715.