Disney comes to Times Square, and transforms a gritty urban scene into a fantasy city. A woman puts on her face each morning, and calls her cosmetics "hope in a jar." In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, how much of our world is an illusion? Also, the joke that misled Margaret Mead.

Kevin Baker, author of the historical novel "Dreamland," tells Jim Fleming how Coney Island (where his book is set) mixed fantasy and reality for 19th century Americans and immigrants. Also, Sociologist John Hannigan talks with Steve Paulson about urban theme parks and how they transform urban life into a form of entertainment. Hannigan is the author of "Fantasy City: Pleasure and Profit in the Postmodern Metropolis."

Historian Kathy Peiss talks with Jim Fleming about the history of cosmetics in America. Her book is "Hope in a Jar: The Making of America's beauty culture. Also, anthropologist Derek Freeman tells Judith Strasser about his new book, "The Hoaxing of Margaret Mead." Freeman says Mead's conclusions about sexuality in Samoa were based on fabricated stories which Mead wanted to believe because they supported her professor's theories.

Charlene Spretnak is the author of "The Resurgence of the Real: Body, Nature, and Place in a Hypermodern World." She tells Judith Strasser that modernity has meant severing ourselves from nature and community, but that our ideas are beginning to change.

Distribution dates:

• week of 04/25/99 - hour 3