I've always loved learning more about circus' and especially after seeing The Greatest Showman (and learning that although it's based on the real Barnum, not a lot is actually true in the movie), so I was extra excited to get this book. Unfortunately, at the time the book just did not hold my attention. I'm going to have to go back and try again though cause I really do love learning about the early life of the circus.

As hard as I tried, I couldn't make it all the way through this one. Some parts of the book were absolutely fascinating and other stories just dragged endlessly through page after page.

Is there an American entertainer who's had more written about him (or her) than Phineas Taylor Barnum? It's been 130 years since Barnum died and still we are fascinated by this celebrated huckster.

P.T. Barnum was a man of action who took advantage of opportunities when they presented themselves and created opportunities when they didn't. He was a businessman, a politician, a philanthropist. He was an advocate of temperance, black suffrage, and animal protections (despite [or perhaps because of] losing animals in fires in his circuses).

He was a colorful character, to be sure, and he was probably the first person to be a celebrity just by being a celebrity and also likely the first person to use social media (newspapers and magazines) effectively to draw attention to himself and his interests. I can only imagine what he might have done had he lived in this time with social media that can reach millions in a minute and more gullible 'suckers' than ever.

Plenty has been written about Barnum before (including by Barnum himself), but author Robert Wilson has done his research and presented a new look at this old huckster. We spend a a fair amount of time with his working relationship with Jenny Lind, "The Swedish Nightingale." Wilson briefly brings up the question as to whether or not there was any romantic involvement between the two, but quickly dismisses the notion. Although less exciting from a reader perspective, it actually makes the most sense given what else we know about the man.

Prior to his working with the renowned singer, Ms. Lind, Barnum had a contracted business arrangement with Charley Stratton, aka General Tom Thumb - a dwarf with remarkable stage presence and wit. I learned quite a bit about this partnership.

It takes a little while to get to Barnum's partnership with James Anthony Bailey, but we certainly get there, which is important since most people likely know the P.T. Barnum name because of the Barnum & Bailey Circus (which much later became The Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus).

This book is a great introduction to the world of Mr. P.T. Barnum and anyone interested in biographies, history, or entertainment is likely to find something to enjoy here. For those who already have a passing familiarity with Mr. Barnum, there are still things to learn, making this book worth reading.

Looking for a good book? Barnum, by Robert Wilson, is a very good modern introduction to one of the first, great self-promoters and businessmen.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

When you think of a biography, you expect it to be almost the same as the millions of others out there; however with Barnum, you get the whole package. Mr. Wilson did some really intense research on Mr. Barnum for this book. It was a little hard in the beginning, but it really captured me towards the middle and all the way to the end.

Barnum: An American Life is all about one of my favorite people, PT Barnum.  Barnum is from CT and one of his museums is in downtown Bridgeport and I love the building so much it was often subject of my photo class projects and we even have a poster of it hanging in the house.  This book goes into a lot of depth about his life. He also had a museum on Broadway in NY and was a bit of a trickster to try and get money from people.  One of his exhibits was the "Feejee Mermaid" and the story of it essentially starts this book. It was a 161 year old mermaid!   He had all sorts of acts that he would have at his museum to try and get people to tour it.  He ended up meeting Charles who became General Tom Thumb, another CT resident.  It was also interesting to hear about how Barnum was buying real estate with a friend - Noble - Barnum and Noble are still streets to this day in Bridgeport.  A long book,  a fascinating life, and lots of fires.

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review, I was not otherwise compensated.

Barnum: An American Life is an in-depth look at the life of Phineas Taylor Barnum. Barnum grew up in a small town in Connecticut and from an early age was interested in business, entrepreneurship and earning money. He was close to his family, who enjoyed teasing and pranking each other. His grandfather told him for years that he had purchased a plot of land that would be a profitable farm one day as an inheritance for Barnum. Barnum was told this over and over by many people and when he visited it in his early teens, he discovered that it was a marshy little island not good for anything. During his childhood and early twenties, he worked at various jobs including as a clerk in a grocers shop, he created his own lottery, and as a newspaperman.
The author, Robert Wilson does a great job researching Barnum's life and sharing the facts. I felt that he was unbiased and fair in his presentation of Barnum as a man. It was a very interesting read and eye-opening as my only real exposure to Barnum had been from the movie, The Greatest Showman. Barnum overcame immense odds to become a self-made man who many sought out for his wealth and his name. He was kind and charitable, but flawed and real. If you have an interest in rags-to-riches stories, biographies, or American heroes then this is a great choice for you.

With any book, a rating or review shouldn’t just be about whether (or how much) you liked it. You have to examine its purpose and if it fulfilled its objective. Entertainment: 3
Purpose: 4

This book is not for a beginner in the life of Barnum.

I began my journey into Barnum by seeing the show Barnum being performed, watched The Greatest Showman, and then pursued actual historical knowledge with The Great and Only Barnum (by Candace Fleming). My wife and I even saw the second-to-last circus show on Long Island (NY). I was semi-knowledgeable and this book gave me a wealth of new information. It was readable, enjoyable, but dense and informative in details that a beginner would not need or want.

I have decided to undertake a Barnum series this year and will read PT Barnum’s self-published works soon. This book was a stepping stone, albeit a steep one, but also a good shove to pursue more Barnum information. He was clearly more than a circus-type, and more into business and advertising than circus shows. His religion, philanthropy, and socio-cultural achievements and contributions are numerous and enduring. This biography highlighted these and achieved its purpose: to provide us with a contemporary and complete autobiography of this great man.

This book about the life of P.T. Barnum is fascinating. A man who basically recreated himself into an empire. If you love bibliographies or circuses, this is a must read!

I was first interested in this book because I enjoyed the musical The Greatest Showman which I think the release of the movie and the book were coordinated well together. The musical shows you the showmanship and starry-eyed look at the man and this well researched book gives you the details of his life. There aren't very many good biographies of PT Barnum out there and this one stands apart for its depth and well rounded depiction of Barnum.

Barnum is a biography about P. T. Barnum. What a great story about a man who learned to wow an audience. I love anything to do with the circus and I have always enjoyed reading about P. T. Barnum even though he died 125 years ago. This was a very interesting and detailed book about his life and endeavors. Her was born in 1810 in Bethel, CT. He died in 1891 and had always been connected to circus. Thank you to Net Galley for providing an advanced reader’s copy for review.

BROADWAY DIRECT FALL THEATER BOOK ROUNDUP INCLUDES BARNUM: He may not have looked exactly like Hugh Jackman, but P.T. Barnum was the showman of showmen who has influenced Broadway producers and hucksters and PR flacks and stars for more than a century. The first serious biography in decades, Robert Wilson’s work has already been trumpeted on the front page of the New York Times Book Review. Barnum surely would have expected no less. But he didn’t just hype nonsense, like the discovery of a “mermaid.” Barnum also delivered the goods in both entertainment and education, and according to all accounts, author Wilson (the editor of The American Scholar) does the same here.

By Michael Giltz

I am a huge PT Barnum fan and I have read all of his books that I could find. He is a fascinating character with an oversized myth wrapped around him. His own books demonstrate he had a real self-awareness that more sensationalized summaries of his life omit. Too often, as in the recent film, he is treated like a cartoon character, more like the WC Fields film persona and less like a shrewd businessman and visionary.

Barnum was a cheat and a fraud but he was cheating and defrauding people who loved him for it. He understood his pluses and minuses, his errors and his successes. He was very aware of when he went too far and could not resist the impulse to go even further. His failings are the same failings America had as it went forward trying to define itself.

I very much enjoy that this author does not take the kind of moralistic attitude seen by other biographers and maintains a very informed historical perspective. That in in itself makes the book a pleasure to read. You are taken into Barnum's world and given an understanding of this strange and exciting time.

I recommend this book highly to anyone interested in a great biography or just a great American story. Too often the sideshow aspect of culture is ignored or relayed in quaint anecdotes. Robert Wilson makes a case for Barnum's importance without losing Barnum's eccentricities.

P.T. Barnum rides the fence of popular American opinion. Some see him as a huckster, a con-man, an early purveyor of “fake news”, and a sign of all that is wrong with America today. Others see him as 2017’s “The Greatest Showman” does: a man who braved all possible obstacles to bring wonder and amazement to the world, and changed the face of entertainment in the process. So whether you study Western classics or modern politics, you may encounter P.T. Barnum and have differing reactions.
Robert Wilson’s new Barnum: An American Life (available in major bookstores now) sets out to highlight these two aspects of Barnum’s life and redirect some of the intense negativity surrounding Barnum’s career. Wilson has a more positive view of Barnum’s life and career that leans toward the “changed the face of entertainment” side of the coin, but he is not afraid to explore the messy decisions Barnum makes and explain the details, including the ethics and magnitude.

Wilson does a tremendous job early in the book setting up Barnum as a pivotal figure in American life. The subtitle makes this clear. He not only revolutionized the entertainment industry, but also epitomized entrepreneurship and American business. Wilson even describes him as the quintessential American. He quotes a contemporary of Barnum’s early in the book as saying:
…Barnum is a representative man. He represents the enterprise and energy of his countrymen in the nineteenth century as Washington represented their resistance to oppression in the century preceding. (John Delaware Lewis, Across the Atlantic, 1851)
That is a hefty comparison, but Wilson uses it to put forward this idea of Barnum as a man essential to the American psyche. There are less reminders of it throughout the book, so I was not always thinking of Barnum in this framework, but the idea is set up very clearly in the beginning.

One of the most interesting aspects of the book to me was seeing Barnum’s philosophy on show business and comparing that to what we see today in business, entertainment, politics, etc. After revealing some “tricks of the trade” Wilson says Barnum didn’t think it would hurt business for people to know insider information because “the public appears disposed to be amused even when they are conscious of being deceived.”
If that doesn’t describe our current consumer culture, I’m not sure what does.
And that’s why, instead of “fake news”, internet hoaxes, and the like, I see in Barnum not a precursor to something we see now, but something we have surpassed completely. His huckster-isms were relatively harmless, he cared for the people and animals entrusted to him, and he seems to have truly cared about entertaining children. You might say he was a cross between a magician and Mister Rogers. Wilson writes:
His only motive was to provide wholesome entertainment, so much so that “I pledge myself to withdraw into private life, if ever the moment arrives that the great mass of our citizens prefer immoral, and vicious, to moral and reformatory entertainments.”

American entertainment has almost continuously shifted toward the “immoral, and vicious” at the expense of Barnum’s “moral and reformatory entertainments”. Comparing the respective TV ratings of Game of Thrones and The Good Place, Barnum in 2019 would be a hermit. Yes, there are ethical problems with Barnum’s entertainments, and there are issues that reflect the lack of diversity in America at the time. But Barnum the book does right by Barnum the entertainer. It considers his time and his position, and it provides a complicated portrayal of a divisive character.

I received this book as an eARC courtesy of Simon & Schuster and NetGalley, but obviously my opinions are my own.

This was a highly entertaining, yet also informative book. All too often you hear that this person or that person was: 'one of a kind'. Barnum clearly deserves the title of "one of a kind". The u=author did a marvelous job of capturing the spirit and drive of this unique American. That is what stands out for me --- the drive, the persistence, the raw determination that characterized Barnum's life and lies at the center of his character. I never knew or appreciated how many tragedies, setbacks, losses, (fires!) that he weathered in the course of his life. I feel richer for having read this book and encourage others to do likewise.

Fantastic book! It really separates myth and reality. I learned so many things about him and how much of a hustler he really was. Very thorough biography. There were things that I had no idea about. I would tell ya but that would spoil the surprise. Definitely recommend

Factual Look at This Ultimate Showman
The author of this book is obviously enamored with P.T. Barnum. The book takes a very detailed look at his life from childhood to death. The book is heavily footnoted. It gives the reader a fairly detailed look at life in the 1800s. In all, it is very interesting. It is not a 'light-read'. I found it to be great bedside reading as it put me to sleep easily. I received this ARC book for free from Net Galley and this is my honest review.

Very well done! Informative, easy to follow, and most importantly INTERESTING. I never cared much about hoe the circus got started until I watched The Greatest Showman. Then after watching and finding this biography on Netgalley I had to know. I'm so glad I wanted to know; this book was fascinating!

Whether you recognize his name from the circus or the animal crackers or The Greatest Showman or P. T. Flea from A Bug’s Life, odds are you have heard of P. T. Barnum. When I was in college, studying American history in Boston, I got a taste of the real Barnum. And, for better or for worse, none of those things provide an accurate representation of the real Barnum. Just ask everyone who made me watch The Greatest Showman – which, to be fair is a good movie – how many times I mentioned the inaccuracies (that drinking song would never have happened because Barnum was a teetotaler). And that was before I read Barnum: An American Life.

There were a few things I knew about Barnum from my history classes – like that he supported both abolition and prohibition – but I definitely learned a lot about him from this book. And he was fascinating, and kind of brilliant. I think Robert Wilson did a great job of representing Barnum and who he was as a person. Even though Barnum definitely earned his reputation as being a trickster, I came away kind of respecting him for it. Because he did it well, for the most part. There were definitely (more than) a few questionable business practices discussed in this book, but it was also the 19th century. It’s not like child workers were unheard of in America. Barnum, like so many other businessmen throughout our country’s history, found a niche, and exploited it as much as he could.

I’ve read a lot of biographies, and one of the hallmarks of a good one, at least to me, is that it’s well balanced. The good is right there with the bad. And Wilson pulls it off in this book. I had moments where I admired Barnum, and times when I was a little disgusted by him. But he was also really relatable. In a world where I have the guts to be ruthless, I don’t think it would be out of the realm of possibility for me to do what he did. And I’m sure there are a million people out there attempting it right now, most of them without Barnum’s charm. My final impression was that Barnum was a brilliant, albeit deeply flawed human. And that’s probably the most accurate representation of him I’ve seen.

Received a free copy of this book from NetGalley for a truthful review, and I am so grateful to receive this. There has been a lot about Barnum lately with a PBS program on the Circus and the Movie starring Hugh Jackman, This however is a truly definitive look at the showman’s life and is just a well-written and researched book. I was quite fascinated by Barnum’s early life and career and some of his early “discoveries” that included the alleged 165 year old Black nanny of George Washington and the Mermaid from the South Pacific. I never realized how many autobiographies the man wrote about himself. A true promoter and showman, this is a super book that I heartily recommend!

In the time of #metoo, a biography about another racist white man felt tone deaf. I loved the Greatest Showman, so I wanted to give this a chance, but I just couldn't bring myself to enjoy it. I found myself avoiding reading, which is a good sign I should DNF.