Bigfoot: The Life and Times of a Legend Paperback – September 1, 2010

Brilliantly written and researched. Mr. Buhs has crafted THE final word on the legend surrounding Bigfoot. His most astute observation, expertly crafted, is how the rise of sasquatch "hunting/sightings" overlapped the disappearance of American machismo. Gone were the wild, untamed lands, gone were the industrial jobs, and in their place a legend of a hairy, brutish throwback lurking not in the dark forests but in the darker tangles of our minds.

I've not finished reading this; however, I'm favourably impressed with the author's research and efforts to uncover as much information as he can on the topic. The author hoists himself on his own petard, by maintaining that Bigfoot is, in the end, non-existent, and fails to present both sides of the story, and allow the reader to decide. The author suggests that American sociological changes at the end of the 20th century are responsible for the advancement of the Bigfoot agenda, and while this may be, in some aspects, an accurate representation of the phenomenon, it should not be allowed to colour it so thoroughly and so monochromatically. All in all, a well-written, well-researched book, but failing, in the end, to convince.

Bigfoot, The Life and Times of a LegendJoshua Blu BuhsAs someone who has followed the controversy over relict subhominids for the better part of 70 years, I was intrigued by the appearance of this book under the prestigious authority of the University of Chicago Press. The U of C imprimatur made clear that this was going to be an attempt to once again debunk the possibility that homo sapiens might be sharing the planet with various collateral relatives, both close and not so close on the evolutionary chain. Not only did this not discourage me as someone who takes the subject very seriously, it positively intrigued me. Since first being exposed to the potential existence of what popular culture has named as Bigfoot, and what Grover Krantz has since labeled Gigantopithecus Krantzi, in a barber shop copy of the Ivan T. Sanderson coverage of the Jerry Crew incidents in True Magazine in, I believe, 1959, I have been hopefully awaiting a serious discussion of the phenomena critical on solid scientific grounds of the possibility that these creatures might actually be tromping around in various montane forests and swamplands in North America and across the Asian continent. By serious, I mean a discussion that deals honestly and with as much credibility with the available evidence as presentations by Bernard Heuvelmanns, Ivan T. Sanderson, Grover Krantz, and Jeff Meldrum and various other serious researchers trailing real academic credentials in their wake have done on the other side of the debate. I was disappointed.What I found instead was a most excellent and fascinating summary of the entire history of what Ivan T. Sanderson labeled ABSMry before his sadly premature death in his early sixties from brain cancer. Every player of any degree of importance in the field, both academic and amateur, supportive or hostile, is there and every major and minor event is covered. In addition, if the reader desires a bibliography worthy of notice, it is here to be found. If the reader, however, is looking for an honest and fair minded exploration of the contributions and noncontributions of the various major actors in the American side of the story, he will be disappointed.What Joshua Blu Buhs gives us instead is a lively, but very prejudicial romp through the history of American ABSMry, filled with good guys (invariably Bigfoot skeptics and debunkers) and bad guys (filled with a remarkable grab bag of self-promoting charlatans and more than a few serious researchers who deserve better than they get in the covers of this book). I found very little of what I would consider acceptable discussion of the hard core evidence relating to the existence most particularly of North American relatives of the Asian Gigantopithecus and a great deal of character assassination of a sort that old Joe McCarthy would have approved. Blu Buhs uses the classic technique of the determined professional debunker of gathering and presenting the most egregious products of hucksterism and at the same time avoiding material supportive to the other side of the debate. It is the 21st century equivalent of ridiculing the vast field of UFOlogy by presenting the claims of George Adamski as the “answer” to the debate of whether this planet is being visited by alien intelligences in possession of advanced technology—and it stinks to high heavens in my mind.The most egregious example of the Blu Buhs’ approach can be found in his discussion of the career and contribution of Ivan T. Sanderson. Sanderson was a remarkable combination of serious scientist and dabbler in what he himself labeled as Forteana after Charles Fort, the turn of the century writer on phenomena that transcended the acceptable limits of scientific orthodoxy. Sanderson’s attitude on the subject of phenomena transcending the acceptable paradigms of orthodoxy was that it had to be seriously looked at, discussed, and accepted as being beyond resolution using the tools of contemporary science. He was, at the same time, a fearless defender of reports presented by nonscientifically trained observers and reserved his heaviest contempt for formally trained scientists who dismissed the outré because it was being reported by the hoi polloi of the world.How does Blu Buhs deal with Sanderson’s contribution to the subject? In two ways.The first is by presenting a highly colored version of his various personal interactions with his scientific peers during the course of his life. Sanderson, with his British Eton background was a master at debate and sarcastic put downs of smug and pompous and self important authority figures. It would be unfair to put Joshua Blu Buhs on the level of some of Ivan Sanderson’s most egregiously silly targets, but one suspects that much, if not all, of Blu Buhs’ material would be quickly set in more proper perspective if the good Scotsman were around to balance the books.The second way that Blu Buhs attempts to dispose of Sanderson is by focusing on his extensive career as a Fortean dabbling in various really weird and, in this writers’ perspective, bizarre and improbable phenomena and to use the logically untenable technique of saying that, because some of Sanderson’s dabblings (like UFOs) were stuff and nonsense (in Blu Buhs’ opinion) this discredits Sanderson’s writings on relict subhominids and various other undocumented specimens of cryptozoology. Having been exposed to the writings of what I consider to have been the two Ivans, it is this reviewer’s opinion that Ivan kept the two subjects nicely segregated in his mind and in his published work. Being willing to report and to speculate on the inexplicable is not a crime, although it is apparently in Joshua’s tidyand antiseptic intellectual universe. What is particularly irksome is Blu Buhs’ complete refusal to recognize the truly fundamental intellectual contribution that Ivan T. Sanderson made to the field of ABSMry by placing the distribution of subhominids in the ecologically sound stretch of montane forests stretching broken only by the Bering Strait from the Himalayas and the Urals of Asia through the coastal ranges of Canada and the United States in his magnum opus, Abominable Snowman, Legend Brought to Life. Instead, the book is ridiculed on various grounds, all open to counterattack.While I am very critical of what I consider the dark side of this book, there is a sort of a book within a book here that would have been worth considering if Joshua Blu Buhs had been able to refrain from using questionable techniques of presentation and argument to discredit a subject that I take very seriously. That would be the approach that he began the book with and that is to put the popularity of the Bigfoot phenomena in a useful cultural perspective. Here, I believe, that Joshua Blu Buhs is on very solid grounds and I will quote here from what may well be the most concise summation of his paradigm: “Bigfoot was the perfect embodiment of this notion of true—probably just an invention but still seemingly authentic as gritty as a cowboy, self-reliant, living on its own terms, far from the corrupting influences of a feminized and weak society”. As a sort of pop culture reaction to the artificiality of 20th and 21st century consumer based society, the popularity of Bigfoot is exactly that. This is reflected most obviously by the popularity of the endlessly unsuccessful travelogue TV series “Searching for Bigfoot” with its four down home unpretentious searchers wandering from one small rural working class community to another listening sympathetically to an endless series of reported sightings and then stumbling around various woodlands but never quite “finding” their quarry. The only problem here is that the fact that relict populations of hairy subhominids may be still in existence in the real world is irrelevant to their “sex appeal” and that is where this author and this book have gone most spectacularly astray.

I liked the cover. After that the book went down fast. Blu Buhs certainly doesn't come off as objective. Maybe that wasn't his intention. I think the subject matter deserves better.

Joshua Buhs enters the world of bigfoot by presenting the story of bigfoot as he finds it. Buhs recreates a timeline of wildmen in general, ranging from the yeti, sasquatch, bigfoot, and the green man based upon stories, legends, and purported sightings. He weaves a well-phrased and moderately insightful look into wildman stories but what becomes truly annoying is his constant reminder that he doesn't "believe" in bigfoot so therefore they just don't exist. I read both the 'believer' books and the skeptic books regarding this topic and Buhs, from the skeptic side, recounts the stories and legends but then dismisses them just as readily. He focuses on the psychological and sociological aspects of bigfoot instead of physical simply because he doesn't think they exist, which is fine by me. He does nothing to disprove any evidence other than recount the hoaxers of Ivan Marx and Ray Wallace (interestingly he never mentions Paul Freeman) and belittles the old investigators due to their inability to organize, share information, and constantly fight amongst each other.All-in-all, this book fits well alongside Marjorie Halpin's  Manlike Monsters on Trial . I enjoyed Buhs take on bigfoot's legend, whether they be real or not. Everyone must make up their own mind until undisputed proof arises. While Buhs constantly reminds us that he doesn't believe in bigfoot, he none-the-less respects the topic to present a readable, if not enjoyable, skeptic's book on the subject matter.

I never paid money for a book about a legend before. I read artcles about Loch Ness, sure. Lots of time and some money on movies. What am I saying? I guess I am reading fiction all the time. Who cares if the story is non-factual. However, the title here is fact. You get what it bargains for and more, because it modestly reveals a network of gullible types who have the time or the money or both to hold a camera in the cold and wait for an appearance. And who knows--it is possible. This is a nice book about the eccentrics who fall for the possibilities on the edge. More power to them.

To the most important aspect first: this is a well-researched, well-presented, and eminently readable book about the history of the Bigfoot phenomena, the sighting, evidences, mythology, personalities, controversies etc. It is not about Bigfoot the creature or if he is real or not. As such it is an interesting topic on its own and is this aspect appeals to you I recommend this work.I noticed all of the other reviews were by folk who are obviously more deeply invested in Bigfoot in a variety of ways, which of course makes complete sense. I however am not-I was just interested in the history of a modern mythology, and as such I found Bigfoot: Life and Times of Legend a factual and enjoyable read. Recommenced.

Being someone who has long been interested in the subject as a sceptic, I wanted a book which examined the evidence for and against the existence of Bigfoot/Sasquatch. Instead, this treats the subject largely as a cultural phenomenon, setting the various phases of interest in Bigfoot against the sociological and cultural backdrop of the various periods. Whilst interesting to a degree, at times it read like a sociology PhD thesis which is advancing a rather subjective narrative.The other main component of the book is a treatment of the main players in the study of Bigfoot, most of whom I had come across before. I will admit that it was interesting to see their characters and backstories fleshed out, but there was very little on the substantive evidence for and against Bigfoot itself. I am strongly inclined not to believe in the existence of such creatures, and my main interest is in how there come to be so many first hand accounts of encounters. Is it a question of dishonesty or delusion for instance? I also wanted a methodical treatment and balanced weighing of the evidence, but none of this is to be found in the book.