Publisher's Synopsis
The term "scam" is really a new word in the English lexicon and has come to supersede its older and more distinguished original cousin, "the confidence game" or "con game", as it became popularly known at the time. One constant in human history is the tendency to want to shorten and simplify some of the most descriptive concepts we have, to anything that can be mumbled as a single syllable mouthful. Throughout history, there have always been fraudsters and tricksters ready and willing to part people from their money with smooth-talking and tall tales, but the first formally recorded "confidence trick" was uniquely American in its origins and set the bar for both simplicity and sheer guts, both hallmarks of the most successful frauds ever perpetrated.
