This book is pitched as a guide to the world of pseudoscience. The book opens with high level and full contents listings, acknowledgements and a six page introductory essay. What is immediately notable is that despite the quasi‐scientific trappings of the work the introductory essay is written by “genuine historians and philosophers of science” rather than anyone with any scientific training, potentially skewing the viewpoints within.
In structure the text it is set out as an alphabetical list of 124 entries covering aspects from fields as diverse as cyptozoology and ufology. Entries, half of which run to three or four pages in length, are a summary of a pseudoscience phenomena or concept. For the reader with an interest in the arcane or unusual the quality of these entries is high, although this reviewer found the level of the text to be applicable to those engaged in secondary rather than tertiary education. It should be noted that for the most part this is an engaging and interestingly written text, with accessible language.
However, while the entries contain much of note, many are dismissed as pure bunkum with but a simple sentence or two at the end. While the author may be a killjoy or serial sceptic of the unknown, a certain level of open‐mindedness is essential for the sciences; sadly lacking in the body of this work. In addition a greater demand for evidence to the contrary would be expected in a work of this nature. Were the author's attitude given free reign I suspect the scoffing at old wives tales of mould helping in the curative properties of wounds would have forestalled the discovery of Penicillin. Indeed, throughout the work a level of personal bias is evidenced, as the author assaults what are clearly his personal bête noirs.
Textural considerations aside, illustrations can be found for many entries. While generally simple and monochrome they are excellently reproduced. A nine‐page bibliography is available towards the end of the work, although this falls somewhat short of comprehensive when contrasted against the number of topics covered in the text. A six‐page subject index closes the volume, save for a note on the author. The index is to terms within the text and works, although locating the phrase on the actual page does require rather a lot of scanning.
As a whole the book feels closer to a monograph rather than a reference work, yet lacks the expected scholastic depth of either weighing in at less than 200 pages of large text. As a book suitable for secondary school education this might be appropriate, but the serious pseudoscience scholar would be advised to look elsewhere. This reviewer wishes he were able to recommend this engagingly and earnestly written text. However, in terms of being a comprehensive scholarly and balanced work on the subject this is not possible. This coupled with the lack of dispassionate analysis evidenced within the entries, means that this reviewer feels unable to recommend it for purchase for any serious scholarly environment.
