The Penguin Book of Lies

The Penguin Book of Lies

$12.00 AUD

Availability: in stock at our Melbourne warehouse.

Condition: SECONDHAND

NB: This is a secondhand book in very good condition. See our FAQs for more information. Please note that the jacket image is indicative only. A description of our secondhand books is not always available. Please contact us if you have a question about this title.
Author: Philip Kerr

Format: Paperback

Number of Pages: 560


In this anthology of "terminological inexactitudes", "economies with the truth" and whopping untruths, Philip Kerr has come up with examples of the art of lying from the era of the Bible and Plato through to slippery government spokesmen in modern Britain and America. Intriguing quotations reveal how non-existent islands were "discovered", how the Pope helped Lucretia Borgia regain her virginity, and how Richard III was given his hump. Casanova's and Napoleon's versions of their conquests and adventures should both be taken with a pinch of salt, whilst Nero, Baron Corvo, Rousseau and Richard Nixon all spread equally one-sided accounts of their actions. Throughout history, Kerr shows, atrocities have been invented, statistics rigged, enemies smeared and orgasms faked. Many of these lies make entertaining reading. Less comfortable are the accounts of Churchill's D-day deceptions, of journalists who covered up Stalin's Ukrainian famines, and of countries so consumed by public mendacity that the only truth is the graffiti on the toilet walls.



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Description
NB: This is a secondhand book in very good condition. See our FAQs for more information. Please note that the jacket image is indicative only. A description of our secondhand books is not always available. Please contact us if you have a question about this title.
Author: Philip Kerr

Format: Paperback

Number of Pages: 560


In this anthology of "terminological inexactitudes", "economies with the truth" and whopping untruths, Philip Kerr has come up with examples of the art of lying from the era of the Bible and Plato through to slippery government spokesmen in modern Britain and America. Intriguing quotations reveal how non-existent islands were "discovered", how the Pope helped Lucretia Borgia regain her virginity, and how Richard III was given his hump. Casanova's and Napoleon's versions of their conquests and adventures should both be taken with a pinch of salt, whilst Nero, Baron Corvo, Rousseau and Richard Nixon all spread equally one-sided accounts of their actions. Throughout history, Kerr shows, atrocities have been invented, statistics rigged, enemies smeared and orgasms faked. Many of these lies make entertaining reading. Less comfortable are the accounts of Churchill's D-day deceptions, of journalists who covered up Stalin's Ukrainian famines, and of countries so consumed by public mendacity that the only truth is the graffiti on the toilet walls.