“Is it an animal? Is it human? Is it an extraordinary freak of nature?” This fascinating biography takes us through all Barnum’s humbugs and hoaxes, from the Fejee Mermaid (part fish, part monkey skeleton), the “little general” Tom Thumb and Jumbo the Elephant, as well as his lectures on money making and temperance reform.  He created the ‘greatest show on earth’ but also suffered several catastrophic fires and bankruptcy. Writing with warmth and wisdom, Wilson resists the impulse to editorialize, but his meticulous research speaks for itself.  Whatever he was up to, Barnum emerges as complicated and vain, and in the words of one journalist, always “on the best possible terms with himself.”