Kevin Young Books
Kevin Young is an American poet, essayist, and editor. He has served as poetry editor of The New Yorker and director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Known for: Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News
Books by Kevin Young
Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News
Kevin Young’s Bunk is a sweeping cultural history of American deception, showing that fake news did not begin with social media and political disinformation did not appear out of nowhere. Instead, Young traces a long national tradition of humbug, fraud, impersonation, plagiarism, forgery, and spectacle—from P. T. Barnum and Edgar Allan Poe to fabricated memoirs, political lies, and internet-age misinformation. His argument is not simply that America has always had hoaxes, but that deception is woven into the country’s ideas about race, celebrity, authenticity, and power. What makes the book especially urgent is its insistence that fakery is never just entertainment. Hoaxes shape public belief, influence policy, distort history, and often exploit the most vulnerable. Young pays particular attention to how race has been central to American fraud, from blackface performance to false claims of authority over Black stories and identities. As a poet, critic, and leading cultural historian, Young brings literary sensitivity, historical range, and moral clarity to the subject. Bunk matters because it helps readers understand why lies spread so easily, why spectacle often beats truth, and how a culture obsessed with the “real” becomes especially vulnerable to the fake.
Read SummaryKey Insights from Kevin Young
Barnum and the Birth of Humbug
A society that loves entertainment more than evidence becomes easy to fool. Kevin Young begins with P. T. Barnum because Barnum understood a lasting truth about American culture: people are often willing participants in deception when it is packaged as wonder, novelty, and excitement. Barnum’s geniu...
From Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News
How the Literary Hoax Took Hold
When fiction disguises itself as fact, it reveals how fragile public trust can be. Young shows that the nineteenth century was not just an age of newspapers and expanding literacy, but also an age in which writers learned to exploit the authority of print. Figures such as Edgar Allan Poe and other n...
From Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News
Race, Performance, and Fake Authenticity
Few deceptions are more damaging than those that turn identity into spectacle. One of Young’s most original contributions is his argument that race lies at the center of America’s history of fakery. He examines blackface minstrelsy, passing, impersonation, and the long tradition of white figures cla...
From Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News
The Confidence Man Sells Belief
Every successful fraud depends on a relationship, not just a lie. Young draws on the American figure of the confidence man to show that deception often works through trust, intimacy, and emotional reading. The con artist does not simply invent false information; he studies desire. He identifies what...
From Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News
Plagiarism, Imposture, and Stolen Authority
Some fakes do not invent from nothing; they steal the labor and identity of others. Young explores plagiarism and cultural imposture as central forms of bunk. These acts matter because they reveal how fraud often works through appropriation rather than pure fabrication. A plagiarist borrows the cred...
From Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News
Forgery in Art, Music, and Memory
A fake can reveal what a culture is prepared to value. Young extends his study beyond journalism and literature into art, music, and cultural memory, where forgery often flourishes because audiences desperately want access to genius, rarity, or origin. A forged painting, a fabricated folk tradition,...
From Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News
About Kevin Young
Kevin Young is an American poet, essayist, and editor. He has served as poetry editor of The New Yorker and director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. His works often explore themes of history, identity, and cultural memory.
Frequently Asked Questions
Kevin Young is an American poet, essayist, and editor. He has served as poetry editor of The New Yorker and director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Read Kevin Young's books in 15 minutes
Get AI-powered summaries with key insights from 1 book by Kevin Young.