- Hardcover: 415 pages
- Publisher: Doubleday; 1 edition (Oct 1997)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0385479948
- ISBN-13: 978-0385479943
- Product Dimensions: 22.6 x 15 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 200,161 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
The best kind of knowledge is uncommon knowledge.
Okay, so maybe you know all the stuff you're supposed to know--that there are teenier things than atoms, that Remembrance of Things Past has something to do with a perfumed cookie, that the Monroe Doctrine means we get to take over small South American countries when we feel like it. But really, is this kind of knowledge going to make you the hit of the cocktail party, or the loser spending forty-five minutes examining the host's bookshelves?
Wouldn't you rather learn things like how the invention of the bicycle affected the evolution of underwear? Or that the 1949 Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded to a doctor who performed lobotomies with a household ice pick? Or how Catherine the Great really died? Or that heroin was sold over the counter not too long ago?
For the truly well-rounded "intellectual," nothing fascinates so much as the subversive, the contrarian, the suppressed, and the bizarre. Richard Zacks, auto-didact extraordinaire, has unloosed his admittedly strange mind and astonishing research abilities upon the entire spectrum of human knowledge, ferreting out endlessly fascinating facts, stories, photos, and images guaranteed to make you laugh, gasp in wonder, and occasionally shudder at the depths of human depravity. The result of his labors is this fantastically illustrated quasi-encyclopedia that provides alternative takes on art, business, crime, science, medicine, sex (lots of that), and many other facets of human experience.
Immensely entertaining, and arguably enlightening, An Underground Education is the only book that explains the birth of motion pictures using photos of naked baseball players.
Richard Zacks is the author of History Laid Bare: Love, Sex and Perversity from the Ancient Etruscans to Warren G. Harding, which was excerpted in classy magazines like Harper's and earned the attention of the even classier New York Times, which noted that "Zacks specializes in the raunchy and perverse." The Georgia State Legislature voted on whether to ban the book from public libraries. He has studied Arabic, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, and Hebrew, and received the Phillips Classical Greek Award at the University of Michigan. He has also told his publisher that he made a living in Cairo cheating royalty from a certain Arab country at games of chance, although the claim remains unverified. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, Time, Life, Sports Illustrated, The Village Voice, TV Guide, and similarly diverse publications. Zacks is married and busy warping the minds of his two children, Georgia and Ziegfield. He resides in New York City, and can be reached via e-mail at rzacks@echonyc.com.
Okay, so maybe you know all the stuff you're supposed to know--that there are teenier things than atoms, that Remembrance of Things Past has something to do with a perfumed cookie, that the Monroe Doctrine means we get to take over small South American countries when we feel like it. But really, is this kind of knowledge going to make you the hit of the cocktail party, or the loser spending forty-five minutes examining the host's bookshelves?
Wouldn't you rather learn things like how the invention of the bicycle affected the evolution of underwear? Or that the 1949 Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded to a doctor who performed lobotomies with a household ice pick? Or how Catherine the Great really died? Or that heroin was sold over the counter not too long ago?
For the truly well-rounded "intellectual," nothing fascinates so much as the subversive, the contrarian, the suppressed, and the bizarre. Richard Zacks, auto-didact extraordinaire, has unloosed his admittedly strange mind and astonishing research abilities upon the entire spectrum of human knowledge, ferreting out endlessly fascinating facts, stories, photos, and images guaranteed to make you laugh, gasp in wonder, and occasionally shudder at the depths of human depravity. The result of his labors is this fantastically illustrated quasi-encyclopedia that provides alternative takes on art, business, crime, science, medicine, sex (lots of that), and many other facets of human experience.
Immensely entertaining, and arguably enlightening, An Underground Education is the only book that explains the birth of motion pictures using photos of naked baseball players.
Richard Zacks is the author of History Laid Bare: Love, Sex and Perversity from the Ancient Etruscans to Warren G. Harding, which was excerpted in classy magazines like Harper's and earned the attention of the even classier New York Times, which noted that "Zacks specializes in the raunchy and perverse." The Georgia State Legislature voted on whether to ban the book from public libraries. He has studied Arabic, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, and Hebrew, and received the Phillips Classical Greek Award at the University of Michigan. He has also told his publisher that he made a living in Cairo cheating royalty from a certain Arab country at games of chance, although the claim remains unverified. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, Time, Life, Sports Illustrated, The Village Voice, TV Guide, and similarly diverse publications. Zacks is married and busy warping the minds of his two children, Georgia and Ziegfield. He resides in New York City, and can be reached via e-mail at rzacks@echonyc.com.
From the Author
Author's Pep Talk
I confess. I wrote the book. I spent two years studying hermaphrodites, eunuchs, women who breast-feed puppies, masturbation accidents, popes who make JFK look faithful, and other important under-studied topics. I am also proud to announce that about a third of the book has something to do with sex. And the other two-thirds packs all kinds of strange stories, from the ugly origins of Great American fortunes to Thomas Edison feuding with George Westinghouse over building the first electric chair.
I confess. I wrote the book. I spent two years studying hermaphrodites, eunuchs, women who breast-feed puppies, masturbation accidents, popes who make JFK look faithful, and other important under-studied topics. I am also proud to announce that about a third of the book has something to do with sex. And the other two-thirds packs all kinds of strange stories, from the ugly origins of Great American fortunes to Thomas Edison feuding with George Westinghouse over building the first electric chair.
If you get a chance, check out my web site But be sure to buy the book from Amazon.com.
I hope you enjoy. Don't miss the 200 pictures.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
The children are safely tucked in bed; a light breeze blows in through the window; Mom hushes them and begins to tell a sweet tale of . . . children being abandoned in the woods, lured to a witch's cottage, there to be fattened and roasted in an oven. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
The children are safely tucked in bed; a light breeze blows in through the window; Mom hushes them and begins to tell a sweet tale of . . . children being abandoned in the woods, lured to a witch's cottage, there to be fattened and roasted in an oven. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
An entertaining, if somewhat offbeat read...this is one of those books that makes you lose some of your faith in humanity's humanity, but it also very, very funny...if you like the weird, the bizarre and the sexily strange, you'll like this book.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I belive that this is the most honest book worldwide. It displays information that is covered up and lied about at schools nationwide. It is enlightening.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I belive that this is the most honest book worldwide. It displays information that is covered up and lied about at schools nationwide. It is enlightening.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Remarkablely fascinating!!!
When I start reading this book, I couldn't stop reading until my eyes turn red and I could feel smoke in my eyes for a couple of days. Read more
Published on 26 Jun 1999
Not worth the time or money
This book came highly reccommended and I couldn't wait to get started! I should have gotten a hint of it's shallowness by reading the cover, back and front. Read more
Published on 10 Jan 1999
This book is so good my college professor borrowed it!
I enjoyed this book so much that I read it in only a few days. After discussing some of the material with my professor, he borrowed the book and I have not seen it since. Read more
Published on 18 Dec 1998
not the usual trivia collection...
A few things I'd already known, and a *surprising* lot I hadn't, which is quite an accomplishment! Too many books of this sort seem to be retreads of the same set of oddities, but... Read more
Published on 24 July 1998
The ultimate resource for intellectual curmudgeons
Zacks covers an incredible number of topics from the spiritual to the lurid. Addictive reading that leaves you challenging "common knowledge. Read more
Published on 7 July 1998
albert einstein morphed into jackie susann! brilliant.
whoever this zacks guy is, he deserves the Nobel prize. He's made history erotic, amusing, enticing, thought-provoking, and actually worth learning. Read more
Published on 17 Dec 1997
magnificent good fun!
At least two "Ohmigawd, I didn't know that!"'s a page, guaranteed. This book is brilliantly, wildly, giddily fun, but it's also a genuine education. Read more
Published on 16 Dec 1997
A richly entertaining, flesh-and-blood romp through history.
FINALLY! "An Underground Education" is a rollicking, ambrosial feast packed full of deliciously naughty, historical facts about popes, inventors, sinners and saints and... Read more
Published on 3 Dec 1997
A terrific compilation of amazing, little known facts...
This is just an amazing book! Filled with weird, wonderful and astounding facts, factoids, and fact-ettes of the highest order. Read more
Published on 22 Nov 1997
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