Empire of Skulls: Phrenology, Showmanship, and Science with Author Paul Stob

Join author and professor Paul Stob as we celebrate his newest book, Empire of Skulls: Phrenology, the Fowler Family, and a New Nation's Quest to Unlock the Secrets of the Mind. In this conversation, he'll discuss this absorbing tale of science and showmanship, ideology and enterprise, which provides not just a fascinating history of our country, but also crucial insight into the scientific currents that continue to propel modern life.

"Stob, a professor of communication at Vanderbilt University, casts a spell with his humorous, witty storytelling and cinematic descriptions of a bygone era . . . A fascinating tale of a nation gripped and shaped by a science/health fad that resonates today." —Kirkus Reviews

Paul Stob is Director of the Program in American Studies at Vanderbilt University, where he also teaches in the Department of Communication Studies and the Program in the Communication of Science and Technology. His research and teaching focus on American intellectual culture in the nineteenth century, with an emphasis on the connection between reading, writing, and lecturing as well as religion, democracy, populism, and social movements. He is co-author (with Stephen Lucas) of The Art of Public Speaking (McGraw-Hill), which is now in its fourteenth edition and sells well over 100K copies a year in various print and electronic editions. Empire of Skulls is his first trade book.