Conspiracy Theories: A Guide to the World's Most Intriguing Mysteries

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Conspiracy theories are narratives, and their narrative form provides the structure within which their ‘ . The first full-scale biography of Robert Welch, who founded the John Birch Society and planted some of modern conservatism’s most insidious seeds. These novels explore conspiracy theories both “real” and fictional, showing how history blends with fiction and speculation can supplement fact. Yet despite its wide range, Conspiracy Theories does not discuss the former case; meanwhile, the FBI’s actions are positioned as instigators of other conspiracy theories, but not as conspiracy theories themselves.

Taking these theories as truth, Shea and Wilson wrote a novel that playfully combines a range of conspiracies – particularly around the Illuminati – in a wacky intertextual collage of countercultural mayhem, including its own religion: Discordianism. Mark Fenster has provided a solid and illuminating study of the public's fascination with conspiracy theories and sets forth a stimulating correlation between the popularity of such theories and the social and political values of our society. Merlan has been on the front lines of fringe and extremist culture as a reporter for Vice, chronicling the dark underbelly of American thought—one that has, in recent years, unfortunately come to light.In Roman society, where knowledge about others was often lacking and stereotypes dominated, conspiracy theory explained how the world worked. The Resonance of Unseen Things offers an ethnographic meditation on the “uncanny” persistence and cultural freight of conspiracy theory. Other chapters consider the psychology and the sociology of conspiracy beliefs, in addition to their changing cultural forms, functions and modes of transmission. The project is a reading of conspiracy theory as an index of a certain strain of late 20th-century American despondency and malaise, especially as understood by people experiencing downward social mobility. Of all studies trying to uncover the true background and perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, this book goes furthest by claiming they were a plot jointly hatched by neo-conservative Zionists in the US government and Likud hardliners in Israel.

Liberalism and its expansion of rights could not exist without the legal system, and unsurprisingly, many scholars have explored the relationship between law and liberalism. They do more than just report on where we’re at or recount some historical incident; each offers crucial insight as to the mechanism that drives the conspiratorial mind. What Shermer's book does is delve into the reasons why we are so ready to believe that, to borrow a phrase from perhaps the ultimate conspiracy theory work of culture, the X-Files: The Truth is Out There. In 1958, he funneled his wealth into establishing the organization that would define his legacy and change the face of American politics: the John Birch Society.From the first page we are deep inside the head of the lead character, Paul Morris, and it’s not always a pretty place.