Critical Review Of The Life of P.T. Barnum

P.T. Barnum is one of the most conniving and intriguing authors of the 19th century. His autobiography, The Life of P.T. Barnum, is the story of a man who made a fortune off of the “American Mass Culture.” P.T. Barnum set out to write a book in which he confessed to the countless number of “humbugs” he pulled all over the world. He shows no sympathy in the book for the multitude of customers he cheated during his lifetime, in fact he seems to embellish the idea that he was able to get away with almost all of them and profit from it. This is ironic however because if he wouldn’t have said anything then the majority of the population would have never found out that he cheated them. Barnum also writes to try and make the entire world to understand that he is not just a “serial-hoaxer” but also a man of temperance and intelligence. After the whole story has been read, the reader understands that P.T. Barnum was a ingenious man who used capitalism and “short term sensa...