The San Antonio Book Festival - A Program of the San Antonio Public Library Foundation
San Antonio Book Festival - Matthew Bowman
Courtesy of Matthew Bowman
Book Festival Author

Matthew Bowman

Matthew Bowman is associate professor of religion and history and Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University. He writes and teaches about new religious movements in the United States, Mormon history, evangelical history, and the paranormal. His work has appeared in Slate, Washington Post, New Republic, and many other venues. He lives in Claremont, California, with his wife, daughter, and lots of houseplants. His latest book is The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill: Alien Encounters, Civil Rights, and the New Age in America.

More About Matthew Bowman

Schedule Of Events:

Book by Matthew Bowman

  • The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill: Alien Encounters, Civil Rights, and the New Age in America by Matthew Bowman

    The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill: Alien Encounters, Civil Rights, and the New Age in America

    In the mid-1960s, Betty and Barney Hill became famous as the first Americans to claim that aliens had taken them aboard a spacecraft against their will. Their story—involving a lonely highway late at night, lost memories, and medical examinations by small gray creatures with large eyes—has become the template for nearly every encounter with aliens in American popular culture since.

    Historian Matthew Bowman examines the Hills’ story not only as a foundational piece of UFO folklore but also as a microcosm of 1960s America. The Hills, an interracial couple who lived in New Hampshire, were civil rights activists, supporters of liberal politics, and Unitarians. But when their story of abduction was repeatedly ignored or discounted by authorities, they lost faith in the scientific establishment, the American government, and the success of the civil rights movement.

    Bowman tells the fascinating story of the Hills as an account of the shifting winds in American politics and culture in the second half of the twentieth century. He exposes the promise and fallout of the idealistic reforms of the 1960s and how the myth of political consensus has given way to the cynicism and conspiratorialism and the paranoia and illusion of American life today.

View All Authors

Sign Up For Our Newsletter

Get the latest updates delivered straight to your inbox.
Sign Up Today!
© 2024 The San Antonio Book Festival. All Rights Reserved.
San Antonio Website Design & Development - Backyard Studios