Authentic Fakes: Religion and American Popular Culture

by David Chidester

Book Overview

Authentic Fakes explores the religious dimensions of American popular culture in unexpected places: baseball, the Human Genome Project, Coca-Cola, rock 'n' roll, the rhetoric of Ronald Reagan, the charisma of Jim Jones, Tupperware, and the free market, to name a few. Chidester travels through the cultural landscape and discovers the role that fakery--in the guise of frauds, charlatans, inventions, and simulations--plays in creating religious...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520242807
• ISBN13: 9780520242807
• Release Date: April 2005
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 306 Pages
• Weight: 0.88 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Cool and interesting

This book deals with something I've wondered about for a long time: the seemingly religious aspects of (pop) cultural ideas, images, totems, rituals, etc., and in particular, the role of human imagination, and in many cases, deliberate fraud, in creating a backdrop of meaning for life. While the book is a pleasurable read, it does maintain a certain level of erudition, stylistically. It also manages to remain focused and serious while allowing in just the right amount of good humour and whimsy. I especially liked the discussions on baseball and Jim Jones; after reading this, I'll be ordering Chidester's book on the Jonestown suicide. Thumbs up.