Guided by tween "ghostorian" Virgil, readers will discover fascinating facts about calamitous events throughout history as they explore castles, palaces and dungeons and those infamous figures associated with each. For instance, did you know that many castles were made out of wood painted to look like stone? Or that wealthy prisoners in the Tower of London could keep servants? The book is chock-full of details that kids will find intriguing--dungeon life for prisoners, methods of turture, and even the most popular methods of poisoning enemies. So join Virgil and the other ghostly inhabitants for an historical adventure on the dark side.

Everything is bigger in Texas—including ghosts—especially in San Antonio, considered one of the ten most haunted cities in the world by National Geographic. As the saying goes, “dead men tell no tales.” Or do they? From its humble beginnings as a Spanish settlement in 1691 to the bloody battle at the Alamo, San Antonio’s history is rich in haunting tales. Discover Old San Antonio’s most haunted places and uncover the history that lies waiting for those who dare enter their doorways. Take a peek inside the Menger Hotel, the “Most Haunted Hotel in Texas,” and just a block away, peer into the Emily Morgan Hotel, renovated after a decade of being vacant, was once the city’s first hospitals where many men and women lost their lives. Explore the San Fernando Cathedral, where people are buried within the walls and visitors claim to see faces mysteriously appear. Uncover the legends behind Bexar County Jail. Join authors James and Lauren Swartz and decide for yourself what truly lurks behind the Alamo City’s fabled past. Includes photos!

Haunted by History, Volume I, by Craig Owens uncovers little known facts about eight prominent historic hotels in Southern California and the origins behind many of their ghost stories. Not only does his well-documented research separate facts from legends, but Owens also keeps the subject matter interesting by interweaving historic photos with his own elaborately staged Old Hollywood-style photos shot in the most haunted rooms, hallways, and lobbies. This unique book blends solid research, fascinating insights, and haunting photography that will appeal to believers and non-believers alike. Hotels and inns featured in Vol. 1 are the Hotel del Coronado, the Victorian Rose Bed & Breakfast, the Julian Gold Rush Hotel, the Mission Inn Hotel & Spa, the Alexandria Hotel, the Wyndham Garden Pierpont Inn, the Banning House Lodge, and the Glen Tavern Inn.

"From the notorious Lizzie Borden to the innumerable, haunted rooms of Sarah Winchester's mysterious mansion this offbeat, insightful, first-ever book of its kind from the brilliant guides behind 'Boroughs of the Dead,' featured on NPR.org, The New York Times, and Jezebel, explores the history behind America's female ghosts, the stereotypes, myths, and paranormal tales that swirl around them, what their stories reveal about us--and why they haunt us"--

Healing Haunted Histories tackles the oldest and deepest injustices on the North American continent. Violations which inhabit every intersection of settler and Indigenous worlds, past and present. Wounds inextricably woven into the fabric of our personal and political lives. And it argues we can heal those wounds through the inward and outward journey of decolonization. The authors write as, and for, settlers on this journey, exploring the places, peoples, and spirits that have formed (and deformed) us. They look at issues of Indigenous justice and settler “response-ability” through the lens of Elaine’s Mennonite family narrative, tracing Landlines, Bloodlines, and Songlines like a braided river. From Ukrainian steppes to Canadian prairies to California chaparral, they examine her forebearers’ immigrant travails and trauma, settler unknowing and complicity, and traditions of resilience and conscience. And they invite readers to do the same. Part memoir, part social, historical, and theological analysis, and part practical workbook, this process invites settler Christians (and other people of faith) into a discipleship of decolonization. How are our histories, landscapes, and communities haunted by continuing Indigenous dispossession? How do we transform our colonizing self-perceptions, lifeways, and structures? And how might we practice restorative solidarity with Indigenous communities today?

From that cheerful puff of smoke known as Casper to the hunkiest potter living or dead, Sam Wheat, there is probably no more iconic entity in supernatural history than the ghost. And these are just recent examples. From the earliest writings such as the Epic of Gilgamesh to today’s ghost-hunting reality TV shows, ghosts have chilled the air of nearly every era and every culture in human history. In this book, Lisa Morton uses her scholarly prowess—more powerful than any proton pack—to wrangle together history’s most enduring ghosts into an entertaining and comprehensive look at what otherwise seems to always evade our eyes. Tracing the ghost’s constantly shifting contours, Morton asks the most direct question—What exactly is a ghost?—and examines related entities such as poltergeists, wraiths, and revenants. She asks how a ghost is related to a soul, and she outlines all the different kinds of ghosts there are. To do so, she visits the spirits of the classical world, including the five-part Egyptian soul and the first haunted-house, conceived in the Roman playwright Plautus’s comedy, Mostellaria. She confronts us with the frightening phantoms of the Middle Ages—who could incinerate priests and devour children—and reminds us of the nineteenth-century rise of Spiritualism, a religion essentially devoted to ghosts. She visits with the Indian bhuta and goes to the Hungry Ghost Festival in China, and of course she spends time in Mexico, where ghosts have a particularly strong grip on belief and culture. Along the way she gathers the ectoplasmic residues seeping from books and film reels, from the Gothic novel The Castle of Otranto to the 2007 blockbuster Paranormal Activity, from the stories of Ann Radcliffe to those of Stephen King. Wide-ranging, informative, and slicked with over fifty unearthly images, Ghosts is an entertaining read of a cultural phenomenon that will delight anyone, whether they believe in ghosts or not.

An intellectual feast for fans of offbeat history, Ghostland takes readers on a road trip through some of the country's most infamously haunted places--and deep into the dark side of our history.

In this book Tiya Miles explores the popular yet troubling phenomenon of "ghost tours," frequently promoted and experienced at plantations, urban manor homes, and cemeteries throughout the South. As a staple of the tours, guides entertain paying customers by routinely relying on stories of enslaved black specters. But who are these ghosts? Examining popular sites and stories from these tours, Miles shows that haunted tales routinely appropriate and skew African American history to produce representations of slavery for commercial gain. "Dark tourism" often highlights the most sensationalist and macabre aspects of slavery, from salacious sexual ties between white masters and black women slaves to the physical abuse and torture of black bodies to the supposedly exotic nature of African spiritual practices. Because the realities of slavery are largely absent from these tours, Miles reveals how they continue to feed problematic "Old South" narratives and erase the hard truths of the Civil War era. In an incisive and engaging work, Miles uses these troubling cases to shine light on how we feel about the Civil War and race, and how the ghosts of the past are still with us.

If you believe in ghosts, you're in good company. Haunted Histories brings America's most ghostly locales to life, illuminating their role in shaping U.S. history and detailing how they became the nation's most feared places. Haunted Histories takes readers on a state-by-state journey across the United States, exploring the nation's most feared places. Along the way, the text introduces readers to new ghostly tales and takes a fresh look at familiar stories and locations, with an eye to history. From well-known spooky spots like Salem, Massachusetts, to such lesser-known ones as the Shanghai Tunnels of Portland, Oregon, where spirits are supposedly trapped, readers will discover not only where America's most haunted places are but also why they are said to be haunted. The ghosts of the doomed Donner Party allow readers to experience the arduous and often deadly journey of America's westward wagon trains, while different kinds of "spirits" haunting old distilleries allow readers to discover how whiskey almost derailed the new American nation before it was born. This book can be studied for academic purposes as a historical reference, used as a source for classroom assignments, or simply read for the pleasure of a great story.

From North Beach to South of Market to Golden Gate Park and points in between, ghosts have made their spectral presences known.