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Rating: 
Summary: Dean achieves cultural analysis without dismissal
Review: As 1 of only 2 books on UFOs ever published by an academic press (the other being David Jacobs' UFO Controversy in America), this work brings the topic into the Ivy League: to the Cornell Univ. Press. Driven seekers of "THE UFO TRUTH" beware, this is not yet another book attempting to research and reveal the truth of UFOs, but a scholarly, critical analysis of the topic within the context of modern American sociology, psychology, political science and media (particularly Internet) studies. What most distinguishes it from other "cultural context" efforts is Ms. Dean's (QUITE solitary) respectful, non-dismissive treatment of her fellow citizen-observers, and the sharp comparision of the generally-private abduction experience to the televised theatrics of the space race. WHY she doesn't join the dismissive academic/media/"expert" mob is not revealed. Readers without personal exposure to the phenomena (who are ignorant of their ignorance) may simply join the mob by dismissing Ms. Dean analysis because it is devoid of judgementalism or the media's desperate search for the freakish at whom we can self-assuredly laugh.The language is academic & the sentences long, but the complex concepts are expressed with clarity. The background UFO data is invisible (as other Amazon.com reviewers comment), but to readers fully educated in this topic, that would obviously multiply the book's size by a factor of 100 and repeat material available elsewhere. The last third of the book drags a bit and the illustrations are irrelevant and poorly chosen. However, this has made my short list of "must read" UFO books, alongside those by Budd Hopkins and David Jacobs, Tim Good, Nick Pope, Stan Friedman, and the hilarious Out There by Pulitzer prize nominee and former NY Times reporter Howard Blum.
Rating:
Summary: Cultural implications of an "extreme deviant" subject
Review: I write as a "not comformist" natural scientist that recognizes that this book is an interesting postmodernist study of a extraordinarily deviant theme. As such this study "textualize" the problem of evidence and proof (of eg UFO abductions) and focuse at the cultural-political implications of this topic. Is easy (and same times necessary) to brand postmodernist critiques of mainstream science as "Higher Superstition" but the quality of analysis and writing of this book gives food to many more unexpected multidisciplinary questions that we dare to think of if we follow "only" the best of the debunkers arguments. Are members of the mainstream prepared to tolerate the use of the word "naivette" applied to the apostol of true science and UFO debunker Carl Sagan as does the author of this book?. Well, if we may learn something of she (the author) is that skepticism is a very subtle and hard adquired virtue not necessarily to be atributed only to the defenders of one position, in this case the people(natural scientists) on the side of the official political dogma.
Rating:
Summary: Cultural implications of an "extreme deviant" subject
Review: I write as a "not comformist" natural scientist that recognizes that this book is an interesting postmodernist study of a extraordinarily deviant theme. As such this study "textualize" the problem of evidence and proof (of eg UFO abductions) and focuse at the cultural-political implications of this topic. Is easy (and same times necessary) to brand postmodernist critiques of mainstream science as "Higher Superstition" but the quality of analysis and writing of this book gives food to many more unexpected multidisciplinary questions that we dare to think of if we follow "only" the best of the debunkers arguments. Are members of the mainstream prepared to tolerate the use of the word "naivette" applied to the apostol of true science and UFO debunker Carl Sagan as does the author of this book?. Well, if we may learn something of she (the author) is that skepticism is a very subtle and hard adquired virtue not necessarily to be atributed only to the defenders of one position, in this case the people(natural scientists) on the side of the official political dogma.
Rating: 
Summary: absolutely awful
Review: This book, quite simply, represents everything that is wrong today with the liberal arts. Dean, a political science professor, has succeeded in authoring a whole book without actually saying anything useful. One need only skip to the book's conclusory pages to realize the depths Dean has plunged in her attempted deconstruction of civilization. Yet, from her positive reviewers, we the shapeless victims of culture are told that our problems with the book stem either from our misunderstanding of its gargantuan truths, or our realization that Dean is a post-modern prophet who must be silenced. I suggest nothing so high-minded; rather, we dissenters simply know a bad book when we see one. I fear the effect of books like this, and the classes that "teach" them, on the reputation of a liberal arts education.
Rating:
Summary: absolutely awful
Review: This book, quite simply, represents everything that is wrong today with the liberal arts. Dean, a political science professor, has succeeded in authoring a whole book without actually saying anything useful. One need only skip to the book's conclusory pages to realize the depths Dean has plunged in her attempted deconstruction of civilization. Yet, from her positive reviewers, we the shapeless victims of culture are told that our problems with the book stem either from our misunderstanding of its gargantuan truths, or our realization that Dean is a post-modern prophet who must be silenced. I suggest nothing so high-minded; rather, we dissenters simply know a bad book when we see one. I fear the effect of books like this, and the classes that "teach" them, on the reputation of a liberal arts education.
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