P. T. Barnum: America's Greatest Showman

This book is a fascinating study of the life of P.T. Barnum, the self-proclaimed "Prince of the Humbugs." The photographs are astonishing, documenting the myriad oddities and curiosities whose exhibition made Barnum famous.

There is no denying Barnum's abiding influence, more than a century later, on our popular culture. For better and worse, we owe our irrepressible infatuation with show biz to the prodigious swarm of divas, minstrels, circuses, museums, curiosities, beauty pageants, sideshows, fat-baby and poultry contests that he unleashed, making himself one of America's first millionaires. This amply illustrated, all-encompassing biography leaves no stone unturned, no curiosity unrevealed.