The Elephant in the Room: Silence and Denial in Everyday LifeThe fable of the Emperor's New Clothes is a classic example of a conspiracy of silence, a situation where everyone refuses to acknowledge an obvious truth. But the denial of social realities whether incest, alcoholism, corruption, or even genocide is no fairy tale. In The Elephant in the Room, Eviatar Zerubavel sheds new light on the social and political underpinnings of silence and denial the keeping of open secrets. The author shows that