The Book of Common Fallacies: Falsehoods, Misconceptions, Flawed Facts, and Half-Truths That Are Ruining Your Life by Philip Ward, Julia Edwards Paperback: 496 pages Published: June 1, 2012 ISBN-10: 1616083360 ISBN-13: 978-1616083366
Originally published more than three decades ago, The Book of Common Fallacies sought to educate, entertain, and enlighten at a time when there was no internet, personal computers were extremely rare, and smartphones and internet-connected tablets only existed in the minds of science fiction writers. Nevertheless, Philip Ward managed to pack the original two volumes full of myth-debunking knowledge, much of it still relevant even today in our always-connected, instant-answers-at-our-fingertips world. In this new single-volume edition, the authors have left the majority of Ward’s original text and style unchanged, only deleting those entries that were truly outdated (though they retained those entries that were outdated but histotrically interesting). In addition, they have added more than a hundred brand-new entries to address some of the myths, urban legends, and common misconceptions that plague modern society today. You’ll find these entries in gray boxes.