For more than fifty years, Phineas T. Barnum embodied all that was grand and fraudulent in American mass culture. Over the course of a life that spanned the nineteenth century (1810-91), he inflicted himself upon a surprisingly willing public in a variety of guises, from newspaper editor (or libeler[...]

P. T. Barnum's career of showmanship and charlatanry was marked by a surprising undercurrent of honesty and forthrightness. His exuberant autobiography forms a happy combination of all those traits, revealing the whole story of his world-famous hoaxes and publicity stunts. Here is a pageant of ninet[...]

The modern entertainment industry -- never mind the culture of celebrity with which it is intertwined -- owes a profound debt to Barnum's innovations a century and a half ago. He understood, far better than his contemporaries, how to attract an audience, and no less important, how to keep it. In fac[...]