Ghosts: A Haunted History, by Lisa Morton
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Ghosts: A Haunted History, by Lisa Morton
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From that cheerful puff of smoke known as Casper to the hunkiest potter living or dead, Sam Wheat, there is probably no more iconic entity in supernatural history than the ghost. And these are just recent examples. From the earliest writings such as the Epic of Gilgamesh to today’s ghost-hunting reality TV shows, ghosts have chilled the air of nearly every era and every culture in human history. In this book, Lisa Morton uses her scholarly prowess—more powerful than any proton pack—to wrangle together history’s most enduring ghosts into an entertaining and comprehensive look at what otherwise seems to always evade our eyes. Tracing the ghost’s constantly shifting contours, Morton asks the most direct question—What exactly is a ghost?—and examines related entities such as poltergeists, wraiths, and revenants. She asks how a ghost is related to a soul, and she outlines all the different kinds of ghosts there are. To do so, she visits the spirits of the classical world, including the five-part Egyptian soul and the first haunted-house, conceived in the Roman playwright Plautus’s comedy, Mostellaria. She confronts us with the frightening phantoms of the Middle Ages—who could incinerate priests and devour children—and reminds us of the nineteenth-century rise of Spiritualism, a religion essentially devoted to ghosts. She visits with the Indian bhuta and goes to the Hungry Ghost Festival in China, and of course she spends time in Mexico, where ghosts have a particularly strong grip on belief and culture. Along the way she gathers the ectoplasmic residues seeping from books and film reels, from the Gothic novel The Castle of Otranto to the 2007 blockbuster Paranormal Activity, from the stories of Ann Radcliffe to those of Stephen King. Wide-ranging, informative, and slicked with over fifty unearthly images, Ghosts is an entertaining read of a cultural phenomenon that will delight anyone, whether they believe in ghosts or not.
Ghosts: A Haunted History, by Lisa Morton- Amazon Sales Rank: #855165 in Books
- Published on: 2015-10-15
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.50" h x .80" w x 5.50" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 192 pages
Review “Halloween isn’t the only time for ghosts and ghost stories. . . . Lisa Morton offers a compact account of the human propensity to believe in otherworldly apparitions. She discusses, among other matters, haunted houses, spiritualism, ghost-hunting, ‘Day of the Dead’ and spectral terrors in literature, film and popular culture. To give body and shape to these phantoms and airy nothings, Morton packs her book with images—of paintings, creepy spirit photographs, movie stills and even a full-page illustration of Casper the Friendly Ghost. . . . abounds with phantasmic lore of every kind. . . . reminds us that it’s when the days are shortest and the nights darkest that we most need warmth and light and family. Paradoxically, it’s at this same time of the year, and under just those cozy conditions, that we most enjoy spooky stories. ‘There was a man dwelt by a churchyard,’ whispers a character in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale and then breaks off. No matter. People have been imagining, and telling, what happened next ever since.” (Washington Post)“Morton’s brisk, handsomely illustrated Ghosts: A Haunted History canters through millennia of supposed uncanny interruptions with a kind of puckish skepticism. . . . Morton excels at presenting us with instances of the persistence of belief, across all times and cultures. . . . there are moments all the same when the hint of something truly uncanny is permitted to intrude.” (Times Literary Supplement)“Ghosts is intelligent and well structured. It’s also well informed, which is apparent in the sheer volume of spectral examples that Morton has collected, yet her writing style remains accessible. . . . The perfect companion for those who err towards skepticism over embellishment yet still find themselves riddled in goose-pimples when they hear a creak in the floorboards in the dead of night.” (Rue Morgue)“In Ghosts, Morton brings her encyclopedic knowledge of folklore and the supernatural to bear on this vast, vital subject. For students of ‘things that go bump in the night’ the book is simply indispensable.” (Leslie S. Klinger, author of The New Annotated H.P. Lovecraft)“Ghosts is brilliant, insightful, and scary as hell. Morton proves that truth is definitely stranger than fiction.” (Jonathan Maberry, author of The Nightsiders and Ghostwalkers)
About the Author Lisa Morton is the author of Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween, also published by Reaktion Books and winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Nonfiction.
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Most helpful customer reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful. Agnostic as to whether ghosts do or do not exist, but a nicely written, well-illustrated and fun read. Covers ghosts worldwide. By lyndonbrecht This is a fairly short, nicely-illustrated and well written book. It is agnostic as to whether there are or are not such things. The chapters are fairly wide-ranging and consider a good range of culture, mostly in the sense of the kinds of conceptions of ghosts that people have come up with in folk tales, stories and religions. One detail I can't get over--apparently Thomas Edison thought there were ghosts and tried to devise a machine to communicate with them. Not much detail is provided on this, but there's an idea for a film.It starts with a discussion of ghosts in the classical era of Greece and Rome and their worlds, and while it's a bit rambly, the intro chapters are full of information, and particularly rich on the movement called Spiritualism. One illustration shows a real estate disclosure form, which asks the usual questions about are you aware of a death or violent crime on the property, but includes "or allegations that it is haunted." I suppose that might affect home value (there's another film idea, someone who plays the market by fabricating hauntings, to get caught by a real one).My favorite chapters are these. Chapter 4 "The Hungry Ghosts: the Eastern World" discusses ghosts in Asia, mostly China and Japan, and includes legends but also contemporary film. I like the idea of ghost money, fake high-denomination bills burned so that family ghosts in the netherworld can buy some comforts. Chapter 5, "La Llorena and Dreamtime" discuss ghosts in Latin America and Australia. Chapter 6, "The Quest for Evidence" doesn't provide much in proof or disproof, but does describe what seems to be a thriving phenomenon of people who consider themselves some form of ghost busters, with lots of equipment available online, including lasers, thermal cameras, appropriate aps for smart phones and so on.Other chapters are still interesting. Morton discusses short stories, novels, and film, including both the obvious ones and some less well known.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. It was just what I was looking for a definitive ... By Joe Bays It was just what I was looking for a definitive and comprehensive look at ghosts in reality and fiction.
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