E-grāmata: Think to New Worlds: The Cultural History of Charles Fort and His Followers

Enthralling . . . Buhss erudite narrative is jam-packed with minor and major 20th-century figures who he shows were influenced by Fort. The result is a lively alternative history of modernity. * Publishers Weekly * Buhs makes a strong case in Think to New Worlds: The Cultural History of Charles Fort and His Followers that the eccentric writer cast a long shadow, leaving a mark not only on the world of Bigfoot hunters and UFO buffs but also in literature, where his fans stretched from the modernist avant garde to the science fiction pulps. . . . Buhs engaging study displays the libertarian-leaning strains of Forts following, from the San Francisco Renaissance to the Discordians, and it shows the milieus less liberty-friendly sides as well. * Reason * [ Forts] penchant for compiling earnest reports of bizarre happenings by scanning through newspapers, magazines and scientific journals set off an army of emulatorsthe Forteans, as cultural historian and author Buhs skillfully recounts in a compelling narrative about the birth of modern anomaly hunting. * Nature * Ultimately, the problem (and the allure) of Fort is that the revelation that runs through his work is explicitly anti-discipline, anti-methodology. The facts of the damned, by definition, simply cannot be incorporated into any kind of stable system. Again and again, reading Think to New Worlds, one is reminded that as soon as doubt ossifies into a stance, it ceases to be radical and becomes dogmatic. * Chronicle of Higher Education * Indispensable for students of Forts work, especially those interested in his literary and cultural influence. . . . I have studied Forts life, career, and reception for almost thirty years and still learned an enormous amount from Buhss book. . . . All future studies should aspire to meet its standards. * Fortean Times * As Buhs demonstrates in the meticulously researched Think to New Worlds, Fort was always popular with those attuned to the arts. * AIPT * [ The] tradition of collecting anomalies and cataloging them into paranormal, supernatural, extraterrestrial, mystical, and magical worlds just beyond the horizons of science can be traced back a century to Charles Fort (18741932) and his Fortean followers, which in turn shaped science fiction, avant-garde modernism, Surrealist art, and UFOlogy throughout the twentieth century, skillfully recounted in a compelling narrative by cultural historian and author Buhs, whose previous book, Bigfoot: The Life and Times of a Legend, set the tone for this deeper dive into who and what gave rise to the original New Age. * Skeptic * Buhs distinguishes Charles Fort from Forteanism itself. In fact, this represents a strength of this volume. As Buhs notes, several biographies of Fort exist, but the literature on the social movement that formed around him and his ideas is scant. Scholars of new religions will find much of value here in the study of Forteanism as something akin to a new religious movement. They will also appreciate Buhs argument for the entanglement of Forteanism within the Theosophical, esoteric, and alternative religiosity of the early-to-mid-twentieth century.  * Nova Religio * The apostle of wonder Charles Fort damned scientific expertise and modern institutions that ignored the anomalous, the marvelous, and the unforeseen. But what happened when his iconoclastic acolytes institutionalized Forteanism? In this deeply researched, original history, Buhs impressively excavates the little-known, yet seminal, influence Forteanism had on aesthetic modernism, science fiction, UFOlogy, and contemporary conspiracy culture. Buhs reveals that Forteanism, usually regarded as a peripheral phenomenon, is actually central to any understanding of modernitys perils and potentials. -- Michael Saler, author of As If: Modern Enchantment and the Literary Prehistory of Virtual Reality Marvelous, skeptical, conspiracist, ironic: Charles Forts modernism has pollinated many strange flowers in recent culture. This fascinating book introduces readers to the many (contradictory, unexpected) bearers of the label Fortean in the hundred years since Forts The Book of the Damned was published, showing how art, literature, science, and politics all curved under its weird yet apparently inevitable gravitational pull. Buhss writing is sparkling, sprinkled with vignettes that pay homage to the bluster and whirl of Forts unmistakable style. -- Charlotte Sleigh, author of The Paper Zoo: 500 Years of Animals in Art