Allow us to blow our own horn here. The great science-fiction novelist William Gibson has just given Outbreak! The Encyclopedia of Extraordinary Social Behavior by Hilary Evans and Robert Bartholomew a big thumbs up in Mother Jones. “At 784 pages,” he writes, “a literal encyclopedia of the workings of rumor, fear, and the madness of crowds…The election of Donald Trump is best understood in terms of collective behavior. Familiarity with the weird and terrifying things we’ve done before, as a species, is essential to understanding what many of us, driven by fear and uncertainty, are doing now. Baffled by Trump’s popularity (such as it is)? Read Evans and Bartholomew on lycanthropy and laughing epidemics. Seriously.” Please note that the political spin on the review is Gibson’s, not ours. Thank you, Mother Jones!

We have just released a raft of our best-selling books in reasonably priced, laminate hardcover editions. They are now available from both Amazon US and Amazon UK and other resellers such as Barnes and Noble online.

Operation Trojan Horse by John A. Keel
Amazon US
Amazon UK 

Worlds Before Our Own by Brad Steiger
Amazon US
Amazon UK

Strange Company by Keith Chester
Amazon US
Amazon UK

The Yowie by Tony Healy and Paul Cropper
Amazon US
Amazon UK

The Field Guide to Bigfoot by Loren Coleman and Patrick Huyghe
Amazon US
Amazon UK

True Giants by Mark Hall and Loren Coleman
Amazon US
Amazon UK

Lizard Man by Lyle Blackburn
Amazon US
Amazon UK

Mirabilis by Karl Shuker
Amazon US
Amazon UK

Consulting Spirit by Ian Rubenstein
Amazon US
Amazon UK

Confrontations by Jacques Vallee
Amazon US
Amazon UK

Revelations by Jacques Vallee
Amazon US
Amazon UK

The Invisible College by Jacques Vallee
Amazon US
Amazon UK

Outbreak! by Hilary Evans and Paul Bartholomew
Amazon US
Amazon UK

Seeing Fairies by Marjorie Johnson
Amazon US
Amazon UK

Why Science is Wrong by Alex Tsakiris
Amazon US
Amazon UK

These books will only be available in hardcover editions for a limited time.

Catching up on some recent reviews from some scholarly sources…Keith Petrie, from the University of Auckland, has reviewed Outbreak! The Encyclopedia of Extraordinary Social Behavior by Hilary Evans and Robert Bartholomew for the Journal of Psychosomatic Research. Writes Petrie: “This book presents more examples of mass psychogenic illness and panics than you could shake a faith healer at. There are many example of the usual outbreaks at schools and factories but many other exotic ones involving slashers, phantoms, vampires, and various toxic substances. Even Bin Laden makes a cameo appearance. The book is organized alphabetically from outbreaks beginning with ‘A’ such as the Amou Barking Mania through to beyond the Zimbabwe Zombie School. In between are fascinating examples of strange collective behavior.” He goes on to note that the book has been “meticulously compiled” and ends by saying that “Outbreak! is a valuable source of material…an absorbing and authoritative read and an extremely valuable reference for anyone interested in the field of psychosomatic medicine.”

Outbreak! The Encyclopedia of Extraordinary Social Behavior continues to generate press, including a column entitled “An outbreak of confusion: Mass hysteria, outlandish obsessions, bizarre sects: What lies at the heart of extraordinary social behaviour?” in The Guardian (UK) in August and a mention in a story called “Oh, Maya! Is 2012 the end? Film boosts doomsday frenzy” in USA Today in November. But it’s the reviews that concern us here and they have been uniformly positive. Inconvenient History calls the book “a wildly entertaining, absurdly ambitious, astutely critical, deceivingly academic and nearly definitive study of the myriad crazes, manias, panics, scares, fads, fashions and other sundry sociogenic phenomena that have made history while eluding historians.” This “Cthulhu-sized tome,” writes Nick Redfern in UFO Mystic, is not just “scholarly; but it is also highly informative, insightful, illuminating and witty… A fantastic read.” And in Cryptomundo, Loren Coleman, though not particularly pleased with the book’s handling of some subjects (“I find their black and white skeptical approach to a few of the encyclopedia’s events as being wholly too psychological-based, without any appreciation for the possible underlying factual reality to be found in some of these encounters”), nevertheless concludes that “the book is a masterpiece.” The International Cognition and Culture Institute blog found the book to be “quite an impressive endeavour that can be used for scholarly purposes (it is well referenced) and for fun (because people do weird things sometimes).” And finally, FOAFtale News, the newsletter of the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research, notes that “It is a real encyclopedia, containing some 340 articles of very variable length. The scope and diversity of the bibliography are remarkable; it includes numerous references from other languages than English. The large choice of nineteenth century French studies, mostly medical, of visions and apparitions is especially notable. Original sources are often referred to, and the quotations of Renaissance or seventeenth century books are numerous. This does not exclude modern references as will be shown in the example from Iraq…Exceptional by its scope and the diversity of its sources, this Encyclopedia is an essential work instrument for those interested in the surprising extent of non-standard collective behavior.”

Our recently published book, Outbreak! The Encyclopedia of Extraordinary Social Behavior by Hilary Evans and Robert Bartholomew, is the Fortean Times (Issue 253) cover story for September 2009: “Panic! Strange Tales of Mass Hysteria.” The story is written by Bob Rickard, who concludes that this book “will undoubtedly remain the definitive reference work on collective delusions, mass panics and other strange forms of group behaviour for the foreseeable future. We could not ask for two more qualified guides [as Evans and Bartholomew].” Be sure to pick up a copy on the newsstands. Previously, co-author Robert Bartholomew was featured in an interview in USA Today, “Don’t panic! It’s just an outbreak.” This story was then picked up by ABC News Online. The book was also mentioned in a front page story on the New York Times: “Chinese Workers Say Illness Is Real, Not Hysteria.” Finally, Peter Rogerson, pretty much raved about the book on the Magonia blog, saying: “This is a huge achievement for a small publisher such as Anomalist [Books] and marks a completely new level of publishing for them.”

Weighting in at nearly four pounds and 764 letter-size pages is a remarkable new reference work entitled Outbreak! The Encyclopedia of Extraordinary Social Behavior, written by Hilary Evans and Robert E. Bartholomew. Not only is history replete with examples of remarkable social behavior, from fads, crazes, and manias to collective delusions, scares, panics, and mass hysteria, but so is the present day. This massive collection of extraordinary social behaviors spans more than two millennia, and attempts to place many of the recounted episodes within their greater historical and cultural context. The authors have outdone themselves with an authoritative work that covers a broad range of topics: collective behavior, deviance, social and perceptual psychology, sociology, history, folklore, religious studies, political science, social anthropology, gender studies, critical thinking, and mental health. The pre-publication reviews call it “an extraordinary compilation,” “remarkable and surprising,” and “a thumping good read.” Don’t miss it!