American Sideshow: An Encyclopedia of History's Most Wondrous and Curiously Strange Performers

Book arrived on time and as described. Would definetly purchase again

I really enjoyed reading this book. The author’s writing is fast pasted and realistic and the subject matter comes to life on the pages of his book.

I read this book for research on circus sideshow performers. It lived up to the bill. Marc Hartzman did an excellent job of researching the American sideshow. Numerous people are highlighted throughout the book. It really is helpful if you're an author and want your character to experience a circus sideshow. With this one book, you can provide the names of several performers. Marc also details some personal information about the performers and how the sideshow has evolved. He lists several websites for more information and a bibliography. If you want to know about the sideshow, this is your first stop, hands down.

My kid loved it!

While I am enjoying the read, I feel bad for these individuals for being treated so horribly.

This book is just what it says it is: an encyclopedia for sideshow freaks. I don't consider all the people in the book as "freaks." They are, however, different than the rest of us and the book very interestingly describes their deformities or differences, and tells a brief story of their lives, complete with birth and death dates, when available. I found it to be educational and extremely interesting. One of those books I couldn't put down! I grew up around a person who was born with extreme deformities, but that person was never in a sideshow, and he isn't in this book, of course. Because of living around that person (my dad's hired hand), I never discriminated against people who are "different" and I used to get very angry at people who stared at him. This book makes one realize that these people who are different have real lives, just like the rest of us.

Marc Hartzman has undertaken an ambitious project: a chronicle of those showfolks who performed in America's sideshows from circa 1830 to the present. Starting with the golden era under P.T. Barnum, Hartzman gives the reader brief biographical introductions to these unusual performers. Hartzman's prose offers a good humored look at the place where truth and hype converge in the lives of these human oddities. The text is accompanied by rare photographs from the author's and other collections (including that of yours truly).I find it gratifying that whereas most books focus on sideshow's illustrious (or dubious) past, Hartzman also takes time to acknowledge the contemporary performers and showmen keeping the tradition alive out there on the sawdust trail.The short, the tall, the fat, the tattooed, the conjoined, the hirsute, the limbless: they're all here to discover inside Hartzman's tent.

Book was in better shape than I had expected. Fast delivery, got it days before it was suppose to arrive.

Cette encyclopédie recense en 3 périodes distinctes les "freaks" qui étaient l'un des attraits des spectacles ambulants américains. On apprend ainsi de multiples choses sur ces "héros" hors du commun (dans l'acception première du terme). Si le livre ne prétend pas à l'exhaustivité, il offre néanmoins un large panorama de ces phénomènes de foire.On aurait toutefois aimé une plume distanciée capable d'analyser cette attirance plus ou moins inconvenante du spectateur pour l'anormalité.

livre original sur les gueules cassées et les attractions foraines utilisés au cirque , livre très détaillé, superbe livre vraiment