Genuine Fakes

How Phony Things Teach Us About Real Stuff

Lydia Pyne

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English

Bloomsbury Sigma
01 October 2019

Forgery, falsification & theft of artworks; History of science; Popular science

We all think we know how to define what is a fake and what is the ‘real thing’, even if we can’t necessarily do the identification ourselves, but is that distinction as clear cut as we might think?

History is full of things that are ‘real’ and ‘not real’ at the same time, and these things can thrive for decades, even centuries, as genuine fakes. But why are they interesting – and important – in the early 21st century? The social history, scientific background, and cultural context of these genuinely fake objects have played significant roles in helping to develop and spread very real knowledge about the world and have done so in curious and unexpected ways.

Over the course of nine chapters, historian Lydia Pyne will look at nine things that fall onto this middle ground, including art forgeries, fake fossils, nature documentaries and faked text. Pulling materials and case studies from historical archives, extensive in-person interviews, and museum collections into each chapter, Genuine Fakes will encourage readers to think about all the genuinely fake things that they engage with every day.

Authenticity shapes how we evaluate history, representation, intellectual property, copyright, and even language.

Amid worries of ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative facts’, the question of authenticity has taken on particular urgency in this century.

Genuine Fakes will challenge three commonly held notions:

1) the convention that a thing is either fake or not;

2) that not-real things – fakes – are, by definition, bad;

3) that fakes have nothing to teach us about understanding the real world.

It will show audiences that authenticity is a continuum, one that’s told story after story. Genuine Fakes is a collection of stories about how science and society come together to create genuinely fake things, and the knowledge that is created because of them.

By: Lydia Pyne
Imprint: Bloomsbury Sigma
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 216mm, Width: 135mm,
Weight: 342g
ISBN: 9781472961839
ISBN 10: 1472961838
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 01 October 2019
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Lydia Pyne is a writer and historian, interested in the history of science and material culture. She has degrees in history and anthropology and a PhD in history and philosophy of science from Arizona State University. Her field and archival work has ranged from South Africa, Ethiopia, Uzbekistan, and Iran, as well as the American Southwest. She is the author of Bookshelf (Bloomsbury 2016); Seven Skeletons: The Evolution of the World's Most Famous Human Fossils (Viking 2016); and the co-author, with Stephen J. Pyne, of The Last Lost World: Ice Ages, Human Origins, and the Invention of the Pleistocene (Viking 2012.) Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, History Today, Time, The Scientist, Nautilus, The Appendix, Lady Science, and Electric Literature as well as The Public Domain Review; she is currently a visiting researcher at the Institute for Historical Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Lydia lives in Austin, Texas, where she is an avid rock climber and mountain biker.

Reviews for Genuine Fakes: How Phony Things Teach Us About Real Stuff

Lively, thought-provoking, and consistently surprising, this book forces us to think deeper about what authenticity and fakery really mean, at a time when such matters could hardly matter more. Lydia Pyne is the real deal. -- Ed Yong, science journalist and author of New York Times bestseller I Contain Multitudes Full of diverting tales. * Mail on Sunday * In turns thought-provoking and entertaining, Genuine Fakes is a vital book in a world of fake news and the search for authenticity. It is an eloquent and surprising exploration of the objects around us, which compels us to ask where we draw the line between real and fake. Sometimes authenticity is no more important than a good story. -- Kate Wiles, Senior Editor, History Today Genuine Fakes is full of fascinating stories about what Pyne shows is the thin and permeable line between real and fake in many more areas than I thought possible to combine so interestingly and gracefully. The book is packed with the human foibles that leave us vulnerable to the fake when our dreams are too big to be contained in the real. -- Erin Thompson, Professor of Art Crime, City University of New York In this fascinating, interdisciplinary study, Lydia Pyne challenges us to reflect on the social factors that inspire the creation of replicas, simulations, and forgeries. Ambitious in scope and engagingly written, Genuine Fakes is an authentically wonderful read. -- Benjamin Gross, Vice President for Research and Scholarship, Linda Hall Library of Science, Engineering and Technology