Politics of the Imagination: The Life, Work and Ideas of Charles Fort (Critical Vision) [Paperback]

Colin Bennett (Author), Rik Rawling (Illustrator)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1900486202 | ISBN-13: 978-1900486200 | Publication Date: September 1, 2002

Politics of the Imagination is an account of the life and work of Charles Fort (18741932). Born in Albany, New York, Fort spent almost his entire life searching through periodicals in the New York Public Library and the British Museum, compiling evidence to show that science was a mere faade. In a series of books-The Book of the Damned, New Lands, Lo!, and Wild Talents-Fort argued that science was a new form of social control whose object was to conceal the fantastical nature of the universe by editing out paradoxes, miracles, and paranormal events.

Politics has a foreword by John Keel, whose book The Mothman Prophecies is now a major motion picture starring Richard Gere.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Colin Bennett left school to become a professional musician, then a mercenary soldier, before reading English at Balliol College, University of Oxford. He had several plays performed on the professional stage in London, before retraining as an electronics engineer and running his own electronics consultancy and printing firm. His book Politics of the Imagination won the Anomalist Award for Best Biography 2002.

Product Details

• Paperback: 196 pages
• Publisher: Critical Vision (September 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1900486202
• ISBN-13: 978-1900486200
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,170,554 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Anomalist Book Award 2002 -- Best Biography, September 21, 2004

By 

The Anomalist (Jefferson Valley, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Politics of the Imagination: The Life, Work and Ideas of Charles Fort (Critical Vision) (Paperback)

If Thomas Pynchon had any interest in Charles Fort, this is the kind of book that might result. It's far more than a biography (Damon Knight already did that), but a literary study of Fort the writer, as well as a postmodern rant on the illusory nature of facts and reality in the light of Fort's philosophy. Bennett, like Fort, sees "explanations," especially those provided by science, as a superficial means of understanding. Even more than in his previous book, Looking for Orthon, Bennett does battle with modern skepticism, which he sees as a debilitating contemporary illness. This is a great, big, heady stew of a book full of references to literature, arts, philosophy and more-much, much more. Bennett takes Fort and runs for the goalposts--I don't think anyone else could have done him justice. This book is a monster, a raised fist at the orthodox prison of the mind that is contemporary culture.

14 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars PU, August 14, 2003

By 

Mark Newbold (Pittsburg, KS United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Politics of the Imagination: The Life, Work and Ideas of Charles Fort (Critical Vision) (Paperback)

I confess I bought this for 2 reasons, I treasure my copy of Damon Knight's proto-bio of Fort from the 70's, and wanting to see a contemporary re-examination of Fort's life & work; and the chance to read some new John Keel writing with the foreword. I had then 2 realizations, Damon Knight's bio still stands as the only legitimate bio on Fort (who is worthy of far better than this mishmash) and a paragraph by Keel is often more insightful than entire books by others. I'd read Bennett's "Looking for Orthon" and enjoyed it, an adept descriptive travelog of the saucer mania in the 1950's. But this alleged study of the life, work & ideas on Fort is a travesty. This book is more about Bennett's fortean awakening, his political education and his various axes he wishes to grind in public. All in all, it's more about the author and less about Fort. My conclusion- don't bother. Get Knight's book through inter-library loan or out of print book services.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Heady and masterfully conceived, January 10, 2003

By 

Mac Tonnies (Kansas City, MO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Politics of the Imagination: The Life, Work and Ideas of Charles Fort (Critical Vision) (Paperback)

In a world of books about anomalies, very seldom does one come across a title that is, itself, an anomaly in its aptitude and outspokenness. Colin Bennett's "Politics of the Imagination," a heady examination of the life, work, and ideas of paranormal heavyweight Charles Fort, is a rich and singular book in which Bennett's postmodern sensibilities are brought to bear on one of the 20th century's most radical thinkers. Fort, an intellectual outcast who viewed science as so much socio-mythological advertising, has become synonymous with the unexplained. Bennet argues that "Fortean" phenomena such as UFOs, inexplicable artifacts, and falls of live fish reveal cracks in the buttresses of Big Science's illusory (and ever-fashionable) rationalism.

Bennett, like Fort, views reality itself as an anomaly to be held in constant question; "explanations," if available at all, are only a superficial means of understanding. Bennett grabs hold of the enigma that is Fort's iconoclasm and doesn't let go. Summoning a mass of scientific and literary esoterica, he writes with impeccable wit, pursuing his quarry with impressive dexterity. "Politics of the Imagination" is a high-calorie intellectual banquet of a book: challenging, learned, and incredibly fun. As long as Bennett is writing, Western empiricism can run, but it can't hide. With a foreword by John Keel, author of "The Mothman Prophecies."