Anatomy of a Beast: Obsession and Myth on the Trail of Bigfoot (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780520269866)

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.

Author: Michael McLeod
ISBN-10: 0520269861
ISBN-13: 9780520269866
Publisher: University of California Press
Language: English
Published: 04/04/2011
Pages: 238
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 8.60h x 5.60w x 0.70d