The gyp, hoodwink, shuck, sandbag: An art form that has been passed down through generations of hustlers, con men, and freaks. Selling snake oil is the ultimate con, and readers will find within these pages everything from classic deceptions to the most recent of ruses. From fooling your friends to dangerous stage stunts, Jim Rose, snake oil salesman extraordinaire, provides new angles to old tricks. Those who dare to explore these pages will find themselves enticed by this special brand of snake oil. Step right up: it's all here. There's nothing it won't cure!

In Silicon Snake Oil, Clifford Stoll, the best-selling author of The Cuckoo's Egg and one of the pioneers of the Internet, turns his attention to the much-heralded information highway, revealing that it is not all it's cracked up to be. Yes, the Internet provides access to plenty of services, but useful information is virtually impossible to find and difficult to access. Is being on-line truly useful? "Few aspects of daily life require computers...They're irrelevant to cooking, driving, visiting, negotiating, eating, hiking, dancing, speaking, and gossiping. You don't need a computer to...recite a poem or say a prayer." Computers can't, Stoll claims, provide a richer or better life. A cautionary tale about today's media darling, Silicon Snake Oil has sparked intense debate across the country about the merits--and foibles--of what's been touted as the entranceway to our future.

Selling Snake Oil is sensational confrontation with the masterminds of the world's most innovative and astonishing investment frauds. This book offers a glimpse into the ingenuity, psychology and strategies of history’s most effective swindlers, who successfully duped US presidents, savvy CEOs, seasoned investment professionals, and everyday investors like you and me. The cases are as real as the victims that lay in their waste. But most important are the eternal lessons they left behind. This book is as entertaining as it is actionable, with every story offering readers another layer of protection in their efforts to ward of the charlatans of the future. You will travel from the shores of Antigua to the farms of Ontario, from the Eifel Tower to small-town America and into the sanctuaries of Wall Street. The stories will carry you across the broadest gamut of geographic and historical narratives. All of which, with the singular objective of helping you avoid the next snake-oil salesman.

"In the world of snake oils, you have to see the world a little differently. Where others see poverty, you see riches; where others see weeds, you see flowers; where others see sickness, you see openness." Becca Stevens calls herself a "snake oil seller": She takes natural oils, mixes them with a good story, sells them in an open market and believes they help to heal the world. Becca is the founder of Thistle Farms, one of the most successful examples in the US of a social enterprise whose mission is the work force. She is also the founder of its residential program, Magdalene. The women of Magdalene/Thistle Farms have survived prostitution, trafficking and addiction, and the natural body care products they manufacture-balms, soaps, and lotions-aid in their own healing as well as that of the people who buy them. The book weaves together the beginnings of the enterprise with individual stories from Becca's own journey as well as 20 women in the community. In Snake Oil, Becca tells how the women she began helping fifteen years ago have been the biggest source of her own healing from sexual abuse and her father's death as a child. Wise and reflective, Snake Oil offers an empowering narrative as well as a selection of recipes for healing remedies that readers can make themselves.

Why do you believe what you believe? You’ve been lied to. Probably a lot. We’re always stunned when we realize we’ve been deceived. We can’t believe we were fooled: What was I thinking? How could I have believed that? We always wonder why we believed the lie. But have you ever wondered why you believe the truth? People tell you the truth all the time, and you believe them; and if, at some later point, you’re confronted with evidence that the story you believed was indeed true, you never wonder why you believed it in the first place. In this incisive and insightful taxonomy of lies and liars, New York Times bestselling author Aja Raden makes the surprising claim that maybe you should. Buttressed by history, psychology, and science, The Truth About Lies is both an eye-opening primer on con-artistry—from pyramid schemes to shell games, forgery to hoaxes—and also a telescopic view of society through the mechanics of belief: why we lie, why we believe, and how, if at all, the acts differ. Through wild tales of cons and marks, Raden examines not only how lies actually work, but also why they work, from the evolutionary function of deception to what it reveals about our own. In her previous book, Stoned, Raden asked, “What makes a thing valuable?” In The Truth About Lies, she asks “What makes a thing real?” With cutting wit and a deft touch, Raden untangles the relationship of truth to lie, belief to faith, and deception to propaganda. The Truth About Lies will change everything you thought you knew about what you know, and whether you ever really know it.

Can You Tell Learning Fact From Fiction? “Training should be tailored to individual learning styles.” “We only use 10 percent of our brain.” “Multitasking is as simple and efficient as flipping a switch.” Some myths and superstitions have their fervent believers. But unlike everyday misconceptions such as “Bats are blind” or “George Washington had wooden teeth,” these learning myths can cost you. Fortunately, trained skeptic Clark Quinn has once and for all laid them bare before the research and evidence. Now, myth busting has never been easier. Millennials, Goldfish, & Other Training Misconceptions debunks more than 30 common assumptions about good learning design to help you avoid wasting time, resources, and goodwill on unproven practices. Drawing on cognitive psychology and brain science, Clark arms you with the ammo to challenge the claims you’re likely to hear from peers and co-workers. Be a smart consumer, and stand behind the science of learning.

Long before television and radio commercials beckoned to potential buyers, the medicine show provided free entertainment and promised cures for everything from corns to cancer. Combining elements of the circus, theater, vaudeville, and good old-fashioned entrepreneurship, the showmen of the American medicine show sold tonics, ointments, pills, extracts and a host of other "wonder-cures, " guaranteed to "cure what ails you." While the cures were seldom miraculous, the medicine show was an important part of American culture and of performance history. Harry Houdini, Buster Keaton, and P.T. Barnum all took a turn upon the medicine show stage. This study of the medicine show phenomenon surveys nineteenth century popular entertainment and provides insight into the ways in which show business, advertising, and medicine manufacture developed in concert. The colorful world of the medicine show, with its Wild West shows, pie-eating contests, clowns, and menageries, is fully explored. Photographs of performers and of the fascinating handbills and posters used to promote the medicine show are included.