Revelations: A Sociology of Uncovering

From tabloid headlines to scientific discoveries to investigative documentaries, the claim that truth is being revealed is commonplace today. Such attention-grabbing claims can conjure allure, sell products, launch careers, cement authority and much more besides.

And yet, despite the familiarity of revelation-talk, this notion has been subject to limited academic theorizing to date outside of matters divine. Revelations sets out to examine how the making available through revealing is accomplished as well as the implications of revealing. In other words, it is concerned with how revelations are realized and what is realized through them. Central to the argument will be treating attempts to make available as processes that can entail mix - that is, as processes that combine treating truth as publicly demonstrable but also as beyond simple verification, as alternately intelligible but also as unknowable.

In taking the pervasive appeal to revealing as its topic, and through drawing inspiration from a range of disciplines, this book should appeal to a variety of audiences, including those interested in secrecy, conspiracy, expertise, celebrity, science and technology.

Brian Rappert is a Professor of Science, Technology and Public Affairs at the University of Exeter. His long-term interest relates to the strategic management of information, particularly in armed conflict. His books include Controlling the Weapons of War: Politics, Persuasion, and the Prohibition of Inhumanity (2006) and Biotechnology, Security and the Search for Limits (2007). More recently he has examined the social, ethical, and political issues associated with researching and writing about secrets, as in his books Experimental Secrets (2009), How to Look Good in a War (2012) and Dis-eases of Secrecy (with Chandre Gould 2017). A recent line of his work has examined the relation between disclosure and concealment through undertaking an autoethnographic study of becoming an entertainment magician - see Performing Deception (2022).