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Truth-Spots: How Places Make People Believe PDF

215 Pages·2018·1.184 MB·English
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Truth- Spots Truth- Spots How Places Make People Believe . thomas f gieryn The University of Chicago Press ó Chicago and London The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2018 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. For more information, contact the University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637. Published 2018 Printed in the United States of America 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 1 2 3 4 5 isbn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 56195- 0 (cloth) isbn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 56200- 1 (e- book) doi: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago /9780226562001.001.0001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Gieryn, Thomas F., author. Title: Truth-spots : how places make people believe / Thomas F. Gieryn. Description: Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references. Identifiers: lccn 2017044664 | isbn 9780226561950 (cloth : alk. paper) | isbn 9780226562001 (e-book) Subjects: lcsh: Heritage tourism. | Tourism—Social aspects. | Tourism—Anthropological aspects. | Culture and tourism. Classification: lcc g156.5.h47 g54 2018 | ddc 306.4/819—dc23 lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017044664 ♾ This paper meets the requirements of ansi/niso z39.48- 1992 (Permanence of Paper). For my desk, office, study, atelier Ballantine Hall 754 Indiana University Bloomington Contents 1 Oracular Tourism 1 2 Ground- Truthing at Walden Pond 20 3 Linnaeus’s Credibilizing Transit 35 4 Ford’s Potemkin Villages 53 5 Trapdoor to the Transcendent 74 6 The Whole Truth and Nothing But 100 7 Obama’s Three Birthplaces 122 8 Ultra Clean Lab 148 Coda 171 Notes 179 1 Oracular Tourism Being shown how to locate, to place, any account is what does most toward making us believe it, not merely allowing us to, may the account be the facts or a lie. «eudora welty1» Not long ago, I visited the oracle at Delphi, in Greece, to con- sult with the Pythia about my prospects for writing a book on how places lend credibility and legitimacy to beliefs and claims. Following custom, I first cleansed myself in waters gushing from the Castalian Spring, beneath the “shining ones” (Phaedriades) on Mount Parnassus. I climbed the Sacred Way, passing by treasur- ies and monuments built by the great city- states (Athens, Sparta, Corinth, and Thebes) to recognize the prophecies they received, and with their gratitude. I arrived at the Temple of Apollo, and waited my turn— as a non- Greek, at the end of a long line. At last, there was the Pythia before me, seated on her tripod, hold- ing laurel leaves and sacred water, with the omphalos nearby and also the two golden eagles of Zeus— intoxicating vapors ema- nated from a little fissure at her feet. I put my money down, and a sacrificial cake, which was promptly burned on the altar. I got no immediate response from the oracle, and sensing that the priestess might need a little background, I recited the passage

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Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.