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Title: A Mendacious History of an Intriguing Subject
Review: The Liar's Tale purports to be a history of falsehood, but the author spends much more time on the philosophical foundations of truth. The most infamous episodes of lying, in particular Hitler's Big Lie, along with modern theories of propaganda are not even mentioned. This mislabeling would hardly be a fatal flaw, but Campbell badly misreads the record of modern philosophy on the issue of truth. Descartes, a thoroughgoing nominalist and a liar by necessity (as he wrote at the time of the Inquisition) comes across as a champion of God, Ideas, and absolute Truth. Hobbes is hardly mentioned while much ink is spilled on minor linguists like Derrida, and having spilled it, Campbell fails to mention the Heidegger affair, Paul de Man, and other notorious instances of postmodern mendacity. Campbell has written a bad history just good enough that an important historical subject will have to wait for the next generation of scholars.
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