Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History

by David Aaronovitch

Our age is obsessed by the idea of conspiracy. We see it everywhere - from Pearl Harbor to 9/11, from the assassination of Kennedy to the death of Diana. In this age of terrorism we live in, the role of conspiracy is a serious one - one that can fuel radical or fringe elements to violence.

For award-winning journalist David Aaronovitch, there came a time when he started to see a pattern among these inflammatory theories. He found that these theories used similarly murky methods with which to insinuate their claims: they linked themselves to the supposed conspiracies of the past ("it happened then so it can happen now"); they carefully manipulated their evidence to hide its holes; and they relied on the authority of dubious academic sources. Most important, they elevated their believers to membership of an elite - a group of people able to see beyond lies to a higher reality. But why believe something that entails stretching the bounds of probability so far? Surely it is more likely that men did actually land on the moon in 1969 than that thousands of people were enlisted to fabricate an elaborate hoax.

In this entertaining and enlightening book - aimed at providing ammunition for those who have found themselves at the wrong end of a conversation about moon landings or the twin towers - Aaronovitch carefully probes and explodes a dozen of the major conspiracy theories. In doing so, he examines why people believe them and makes an argument for a true skepticism - one based on a thorough knowledge of history and a strong dose of common sense.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Conspiracy Theories, Psychology, Sociology, Skepticism

Audiobook

First published May 7, 2009

About the author

David Aaronovitch is an award-winning journalist who has worked in radio, television, and newspapers in the United Kingdom since the early 1980s. His first book, Paddling to Jerusalem, won the Madoc prize for travel literature in 2001. He is also the recipient of the George Orwell Prize for political journalism. He writes a regular column for The Times (UK). He lives in north London with his wife and three daughters.

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

THE PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF WALMART

OR, IF EVERYBODY’S IN ON IT, WHY HAVEN’T THEY ASKED ME?


Our text for today is :

Things only appear random because you're standing TOO CLOSE!

Let's cut to the chase here. Conspiracies are real. A trade union is a conspiracy against the rat-bastard capitalist running dogs who run big business. The capitalist running dogs in turn conspire against the honest workers to screw them out of every penny and when they're coughing and flopping about from emphysema, sack em and be done with em! A political party is a public conspiracy against its rivals - or, it's the public face of a private conspiracy. Football teams sit around and watch videos of the team they're up against next and figure out where the weaknesses are - they're conspiring in secret too.

So : you look at it one way, and everything's a damnable conspiracy! And that's the way I'm looking at it today! That woman across the road has some remarkable hanging baskets outside her house, but I REALISE NOW that all those peonies and dahlias are hiding cameras! They can't fool me. I call upon you all as witnesses, in case I'm found in a bag of quick drying cement on a grassy knoll somewhere.

Pardon me, I have to take my tablets.

David Aaronovitch's introduction spells out nicely enough why the conspiracists get my goat and my other pack animals so successfully. It's because they put me in the position of having to defend the authorities ! Yes! Me! Like I would want to do that! But that's what I'm doing when I bat away these crazy theories, which are like, you know, only a theory like gravity's a theory - we know they're really saying this is how 9/11 really went down, man . (It was Mossad!) So then I have to say no, no, you're wrong, the FBI is an organisation of great integrity and would never fabricate evidence and never perpetrate falsehoods upon the public! That's right! Of course they wouldn't!

There's a word for the position these conspiracists put me in : invidious. There's a feeling I get when blustering about how the authorities are honest and trustworthy : mortified.

That's the first reason why I hate these conspiracy theories. And the second is : they mess with my mind in making me think that facts aren't facts at all but received opinion. In this they are like a sharp course in practical philosophy - how do you know what you know, Descartes, what lies beyond the veil, cogito ergo vomit, how do you know you're not a brain in a tank and all that kind of stuff which is alright in theory but not when someone is ranting about the death of Robert Calvi, the CIA and the first Gulf War and the vatican and Monica Lewinsky and the protocols of the elders of Walmart.

As David says elegantly :

given the desire to believe, it is easy to confuse detail with thought.


9/11 : in August 2004 Zogby Opinion Research found that 2/3 of New Yorkers under the age of 30 thought that the US Government either knew the attacks were going to happen and allowed them to proceed or actively engineered them. So what? Most people living in the US and UK believe their governments are corrupt, cover up crimes routinely, steal you blind, go to war for hideous ignoble reasons and lie about them all the time, it’s the nature of government. So what? Do we think that people in former centuries thought they were blessed with their Kings and Popes?

Let’s imagine that – say – America wakes up one day and says - Stone the crows!* You were right! Bush and Cheney are indeed war criminals! Let’s try ‘em! Let’s prosecute all those who sold this phoney war to us citizens and got so many soldiers killed for nothing! What then? Will future governments never make these blunders again? Will the CIA become a force for Good? Do the conspiracists dream of a world without spies? Or again: the Iraq war was according to many conspiracists “all about oil”. If oil is going to become scarce in the West in – say – 50 years time, wouldn’t it be a prudent thing for the US government to secure future supplies? And since you can’t invade a country just like that you have to find a reason, hence WMD and the non-existent threat of Saddam Hussein? Hey, you purple in the face anti-Bushers, you should be praising this great president for guaranteeing our lovely Western lifestyle for another few decades!

What happens in Britain : a big controversial event takes place (death of Diana, invasion of Iraq) – official explanations are offered and routinely derided – the whole outraged nation demands a public enquiry with one voice – and they get one – 18 months later the chairman Lord Seriously-Old or Sir Dreadful Bastard announces the results – which confirm the official explanation was correct in all particulars – two thirds of the nation by then have become bored and are playing on their X-Boxes – the one third left all denounce the findings as Yet Another Whitewash. What has been accomplished? It is a kind of theatre. Everyone takes their appointed place and goes through their allotted script.

VARIOUS OBSCURE PEOPLE HAVE DIED IN UNCLEAR CIRCUMSTANCES

It doesn’t matter if the theorist believes in his own conspiracy theory because these theories are, like religion, a series of psychological strategies which exist to deal with the extreme perplexities of our human situation. We are meaning-seeking individuals in an apparently meaningless and very big & scary universe. Yesterday I heard an astronomer on the radio describing what you would find if you rocketed off to outer space and didn’t stop for nothing – her voice became a pleasant, relaxing drone… “then when you leave the solar system you see now that you are in an outer arm of the Milky Way galaxy which contains hundreds of billions of stars and then you see that the Milky Way itself is part of a cluster of galaxies each of which which contains hundreds of billions of stars and then you see that there are far away hundreds of billions of other galaxy clusters each of which which contains hundreds of billions of galaxies containing hundreds of billions of stars” and by this time I was seriously freaking OUT and in a burst of Tourette’s syndrome I screamed at the radio “HEY LADY, WHO KILLED BRIAN JONES?”

So, for instance, the theory of the deliberate blowing-up of the levees in New Orleans in order to flood the black areas – almost endorsed by Spike Lee’s film – is an expression of the perennial feelings of people who feel oppressed. Many of the main theories propose such a vast complex conspiracy that they become truly farcical – you get quite indignant that you aren’t in on it, everyone else seems to be. So this stuff appears to me to be like the secularised, dark shadow cast by the setting sun of religion. Whereas the Christian cosmology presents an essentially benevolent universe spelled out by Jesus:

Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.

GODLESS MALIGNANCY. COOL!

The conspiracist sees only godless malignancy, a world of men suborning each other, killing the good, doing harm. I note that each believer, the religious and the conspiracist, denies the existence of accident, co-incidence or mistake : everything is intentional in these thought worlds. There is always a Plan. The conspiracists replace one God with many – but are they not all facets of the One in an infinite dance? No. The hundredheaded gods of the conspiracists don’t dance at all – you put a foot wrong and the CIA or the Freemasons or the Jews or the British Royal Family or the Order of the Solar Temple or the Jesuits or the Knights Templars or the Communists or the Mob will frug you to death.

I realise now I have been conspiring against my own peace of mind for years!


3.5 stars.


* A Nottingham expression of surprise

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yesterday morning my neighbor directly across the street committed suicide. Well, her body was discovered yesterday; the suicide took place on July 4th. So, 40 yards from my house, and 20 yards from where my kids and I were lighting fireworks in the street, laughing, our neighbor was alone, in her car, idling a full tank of gas all the way to empty in her sealed garage. We didn’t notice any noise, no gas fumes escaping from the cracks around the door, oblivious to the world, nothing else out of the ordinary. And yet there, in the darkest, loneliest place of human existence, out of reach of humanity, she made a decision that affected hundreds of lives. I didn’t know her--had never met her, in fact. She was in the home of a man, my neighbor, who had recently divorced. They were a very introverted, ethnic family. He traveled all week, and weekends were spent away with family. The yard was minimally maintained, and over the last 4 years there was friendly, but only brief contact with neighbors. For 4 months the house has been for sale. The victim, the new girlfriend (also strangely the first ex-wife), was merely house sitting at the time. She had a 15 year old daughter.

Out of respect, that’s all I have to say about the particulars.

But how did I get those particulars? Like any neighborhood gossip. As the event unfolded, news spread out from, and data flowed into, a central source--my front porch. There were police cars, a fire engine with paramedics, neighbors consolidating into knots randomly in yards, friends and family of the deceased materializing into the cordoned front yard, a coroner, more friends and family, more neighbors, a bodybag. Then, horribly, the man, my neighbor, returns early from a business trip, disgorged by an airport shuttle, and is heard on both lengths of the street howling into the arms of family. Broad daylight. How personal and peculiar the unrestrained sobbing of a grown man. Earlier, my wife made friendly offers to help in any way possible; she even helped catch the small white dog that escaped from the house by the police officers. Now, she began to cry.

The news went out, electrified, and inward returned all the recent, half-minute “hello’s” by every neighbor over the last 4 years, and all the past, friendly chats at curbside about the weather and the man’s travels, and all the insignificant, bijou observations made by adjacent neighbors at night through gauzy curtains, all these fragments began to coalesce into form, into a story that at first ranged wide like a fan, then homed in to a possible, a likely, a probable scenario of events, and, more importantly, the reasons behind the suicide.

I don’t mean to sound insensitive or cavalier by introducing a book review by such a hurtful, private, and graphic scene, but the suicide brought the book Voodoo Histories into a focus that is stark and personal for me. The suicide had all the elements that foment theories of conspiracy. A sudden, unexpected event with many perspectives but conflicting, problematic data. A void of information into which flows a dumb putty that slowly takes a form and shape all its own. With a second ex-wife in close proximity, the girlfriend a new immigrant, a recent miscarriage, an odd divorce, broken English and foreign customs, lack of close identity with the social network of the neighborhood (such that it is), unknown motive, and several other unusual circumstances, a conspiracy theory could take inchoate hold over the neighbors caught unawares on their lawns in the middle of so many daily routines. Every person with a perspective, and yet no certainty. The human brain will manipulate that putty into as many shapes as individuals present. Lack of full disclosure is fertile ground for conspiracy theory. The autopsy will be performed. Labs. Toxicology. Homicide must be ruled out. Until then, nefariousness can creep in. And even then!--a major thoroughfare in the book--with everything refuted except suicide!, conspiracy, like leukemia, can grow slowly and ultimately consume the healthy truth.

The book is good. It’s written well above a 9th grade reading level and, with a substantial amount of British sarcasm and ridicule, Mr. Aaronovitch describes--and then dismantles--several of the most well known Western conspiracy theories from the last 100 years. I merely need mention the subject and the conspiracy theory will emblazon from our collective zeitgeist: JFK assassination, Pearl Harbor, Marilyn Monroe’s overdose, 9/11 attacks, the Da Vinci Code, Jewish world order, Princess Di’s death, Senator Joe McCarthy (and some lesser known, earlier European theories, no less rigorously debated in their heyday).

When you meet people who honestly, wholeheartedly, and passionately believe something like the moon landing never happened, or that the earth is flat, or that President Bush had something to do with the 9/11 attacks, when you realize that you’re the only person at the cocktail party laughing at the others, when you realize that you’re the only person at the lecture that doesn’t believe white man concocted the AIDS virus and crack cocaine and introduced them to inner city blacks, then, THEN, you feel as awkwardly naked as a seal on shore. What an out-of-body experience it is to be the only person in your book club that hasn’t been anally probed by aliens; to be the only person to feel that 5000 people--minimum--had to collude to make the World Trade towers fall, and that not a leak has occurred in almost 9 years; to be the only person to think FDR and the military-industrial complex did not have prior knowledge of the Japanese Imperial Fleet launching over 400 Zeros toward Hickam Field and Pearl Harbor; to be the only person who believes that when several possibilities exist, the least complicated, the least bizarre--Occam's Razor--is probably the most plausible pathway of events. Because the most plausible pathway is the one that, for the great grand majority of human events, it’s the one that usually proves sound.

The other major theme from the book is called Cui Bono?, or ‘who benefits’? Who is more likely to benefit from the outcome of the conspiracy? Aaronovitch pries hardest with this debunking tool, like a lever with the fulcrum far to one side. Easier to think Oswald acted alone ~ or that there was a broad reaching collusion of the CIA, the Mafia, and JFK’s political rivals? Easier to consider that Jews have made great advantage of their diaspora ~ or that there is an über-Jew syndicate that has machinated among world powers without interruption for over 200 years? Easier to believe that 19 hijackers struck on 9/11 ~ or that there’s a vast cabal of neo-conservative industrialists that balanced the lives of 3000 people against 2 simultaneous wars in 2 countries for 9 years and costing 2 Trillion dollars and over 4000 military lives only to lose the 2008 Presidential election by a landslide and giving up power in the House and Senate? Easier to think Princess Diana was in an unfortunate car wreck ~ or that there was a.......well, you get the picture. Cui bono.

For me, a breakthrough paragraph was this:

Modern TV schedules in Britain, America, and elsewhere teem with daytime and evening talk shows, and the last two decades have seen the proliferation of twenty-four-hour news channels. This quantity of programming generates an enormous demand for items and guests, who have to be contacted and vetted by a relatively small number of hard-pressed and usually very young assistant producers and researchers. These trawl the PR handouts and publishers’ lists for stories that will divert viewers and are easy to grasp. The consequence is that conspiracy theorists, like royal biographers, security experts, or crime experts, manage to find their way onto factual TV programs, where their claims are treated with undiscriminating credulity. (p. 159)

And this:

Consider for a moment the repressed sadism that seems to lurk behind a lot of assassination conspiracism: the descriptions of the death, the reports from the autopsy, the photographs of the body...writes almost pornographically of “parts of JFK’s skull bouncing onto the boot of the presidential limousine.” Marilyn is injected or has medicines inserted into her anus. Whatever we might have envied in these people, we sure don’t envy them now...And if we do have such feelings, one way in which we might want to exorcise them is through constructing or accepting a version of history in which they were extinguished by something clearly “other“ than ourselves. It was not our thirst for gossip about celebrities that killed Norma Jean or England’s Rose, but the CIA. It wasn’t an ordinary Joe with a rifle who murdered the young president, but the Mafia or the FBI. “What is assassination, after all...if not the ultimate reminder of the citizen’s helplessness--or even repressed murderousness?’ Conspiracy theory may be one way of reclaiming power and disclaiming responsibility. (p. 169)

A solid 4-star recommendation.

New words: sedulous, hecatomb, jeremiad, gnomic, doyenne,

[Kemper · Rating 4 out of 5]

NASA landing a man on the moon was one of the biggest engineering challenges ever taken on. It involved thousands of people and billions of dollars. It was documented by countless still pictures, hours of film, warehouses full of paperwork and scientific data. And some people will tell you that it never happened. Because they use bad science and faulty assumptions to say that it’s far more likely that the U.S. pulled off the most elaborate lie in history rather than that that we actually went to the moon. (And if you want to argue about it, I’ll just refer you to the Mythbusters moon hoax episode or the Bad Astronomy web site.)

For some reason, people would rather believe that Princess Di was whacked in an elaborate conspiracy rather than admit that her driver was drunk and speeding recklessly to get away from paparazzi, and she wasn't wearing a seatbelt. Or that JFK was the victim of the CIA/Mafia/Soviet/Cuban/military-industrial-complex plot to kill him instead of just having bad luck that his motorcade route went by the workplace of a pathetic loser who couldn’t stand being a nobody. Or that the story behind The Da Vinci Code is real even though the French hoaxsters who duped the idiots who wrote the book that Dan Brown got the idea from confessed years ago that they made the whole thing up.

Does it matter that a fair percentage of the population at any given time thinks that Marilyn Monroe was murdered or that Roosevelt let the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor to get the U.S. into World War II?

Yes, it does. Why? Because once upon a time, a political allegory about Napleon III got rewritten and released as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion by a Russian at the turn of the century who claimed it was the ‘true’ plan the Jews use to wreck and control the civilization. After World War I when everyone was trying to figure out a way to avoid admitting responsibility for what they just did, it got widely distributed, and the Jews instantly got scapegoated for the war and everything else going wrong in the world. It got so much mainstream credence after World War I that legitimate newspapers discussed it and people like Henry Ford helped spread it even after it had been debunked. And Adolf Hitler believed it and he told his pals about it. They used it as a key point of their government and things ended badly for several million people. It’s still around though, especially in the Arabic world where it’s usually taught in schools.

The book does a great job in showing how the conspiracy theory has become so pervasive that it’s become mainstream. There is no legitimate evidence that Bill Clinton had Vince Foster killed or that Obama wasn’t born in the U.S. or that Bush orchestrated 9/11. Yet all of these things have been treated as legitimate news items or fact because pseudo science, bad research and reckless speculation have led to a culture where people will believe almost anything except the truth.

[Kuszma · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Irigylem a paranoiásokat, mert úgy érzik, hogy van, aki figyel rájuk."
(Susan Sontag)

"Összeesküvés-elméletnek tehát a magam részéről az olyan teóriákat nevezem, amelyek szükségtelenül folyamodnak a konspiráció föltevéséhez más, valószínűbb magyarázatok helyett."
(David Aaronovitch)

Meglehetősen érdeklődöm a konteók világa iránt, hogy hogyan alakulnak ki és miért hódítanak meg bizonyos embertípusokat. Következésképp vadászom az ilyen könyveket - egyfajta szellemi katasztrófa-turizmus ez nálam, mélytengeri búvárexpedíció az intellektus Mariana- árkának mélyére. Azt tapasztaltam, hogy konteókról kritikus elemzést írni tudományos értelemben veszedelmes foglalatosság, mert az, aki ilyesmivel foglalkozik, a logika fegyverével száll szembe valami olyasmivel, ami egészen más elvek szerint építi fel magát. Mondhatni, ez a galambbal sakkozás tipikus esete. Ugyanakkor mégis valamit kell kezdeni az összeesküvés-elméletekkel, mert hiába ignoráljuk őket, azok nagyon is léteznek, és bizonyos helyzetekben történelemformáló erővé válhatnak - például lehet érvelni amellett, hogy Hitler aligha tudott volna annyi embert befolyása alá vonni, ha előtte nem itatják át a németeket (és Európa jelentős részét) a zsidókról szóló ostoba és kártékony rémmesékkel. Tisztelet tehát azoknak, akik lemerülnek a pöcébe, hátha sikerül felhozniuk onnan valamit.

Amiben Aaronovitch könyve több társainál, az a téma alapos történészi kezelése. Ez a kötet tulajdonképpen kilenc konteó* akkurátus kivesézése, amelyek közül néhány nem is egy konteó, hanem valóságos konteóláncolat. Ezek némelyike közismert, mint például a Cion Bölcseinek jegyzőkönyve, vagy a 9/11-hez kapcsolódó agymenések, mások viszont nem, mint mondjuk az atomenergia-ellenes aktivista, Hilda Murrell halálához köthető hipotézisek. De akár ez, akár az, Aaronovitch odateszi magát, utánamegy a konteónak, megkeresi a forrását és figyelemmel kíséri evolúcióját egészen a szükségszerű elfáradásig. (Mert a konteók előbb-utóbb elfáradnak - kimennek a divatból, és más, trendibb összeesküvés-elméleteknek adják át a helyet.) Mondhatni, történészi igényű munka, már ha eltekintünk attól, hogy a szerző itt egyáltalán nem törekszik tárgyilagosságra** - látszik, hogy merő élvezet szétcincálni a rozoga elmeszüleményeket, ugyanakkor már előre eszi a méreg amiatt, hogy az érintettek ezt gyaníthatóan észre sem fogják venni. Ha bolondok, akkor azért nem, mert bolondok, ha meg szélhámosok, akkor azért, mert igazából soha nem is gondolták komolyan. Ez az elán tagadhatatlanul lendületet kölcsönöz a szövegnek - öröm volt olvasni.

Mint a fentiekből talán kitalálható, Aaronovitch nem annyira elméletalkotó szerző, inkább egyfajta eseménytörténetet ír. Persze azért az elméleti hátteret sem hanyagolja, de az inkább lábjegyzet a történések dokumentálásához. Ezzel együtt kirajzolódik egy gondolati gerinc - hogy a konteókat mindig az értelmiség csinálja és terjeszti, ők a vírusgazdák. Ha tudnak róla, ha nem, tulajdonképpen a posztmodern, posztstrukturalista filozófiák viszik tovább ezzel, és az igazság relativizálásából élnek. Azt állítják ugyanis, hogy a tényekkel bizonyítható igazsággal egyenértékű az a spekulatív igazság, amit saját érzelmeik és erkölcsi érzékeik validálnak. Amire nyilván csak annyit lehet mondani, hogy igenis vannak az igazságnak fokozatai. Például hiába hiszi átélten a szomszéd munkanélküli bányász, hogy ő is ki tudja venni a vakbeled, azért te csak fordulj sebészhez.

Mindebből következik az, amit én Robin Hood-szindrómának neveztem el, és megmondom őszintén: lehet, még használni fogom, mert tetszik. A Robin Hood-szindrómában szenvedő embert két dolog jellemzi:
a.) Minden, de minden rosszat el tud képzelni a másik oldalról. (Nyilván ez a helyzet leginkább polarizált politikai környezetben alakul ki - nem véletlen, hogy ilyen közegben tenyésznek legjobban ezek a szellemi vadhajtások.) No most az normális, ha az ember bizalmatlan a hatalom felé - de ha ezt a bizalmatlanságot nem tudja egészséges keretek között tartani, az messzemenő következményekkel járhat. Ha ugyanis a másik felet mindenre képesnek tartod, akkor szükségszerűen minden eszközt megengedhetőnek tartasz vele szemben. Tulajdonképpen morális kötelességed, hogy ne hagyd magad elbizonytalanítani az ellenszenvedben, higgy el mindent, ami téged támaszt alá, légy süket a cáfolatra, és ha kell, hamisíts bizonyítékokat a jó cél érdekében. Sőt! Végső esetben védd meg fegyverrel az igazad. Csinálj mondjuk egy csinos pokolgépet. Mert minél rosszabbat teszel az ellenségeddel, annál jobb embernek tarthatod magad.
b.) Ez a karakter önképe szerint egy Galileibe oltott Sherlock Holmes. Olyasvalakinek látja magát, aki a hatalmi játszmák mögé lát, és sokkal inkább érti a világot, mint a mainstream tudomány. Okosabbnak érezheti magát így, mint Karikó Katalin, és jobbnak, mint Ferenc pápa, mindezt anélkül, hogy azt a marha sok munkát elvégezte volna, amit ők - ez természetesen baromi jó érzés. Nem csoda, ha falakba ütközik az, aki el akarja venni tőle.

Különben meg - fun fact - a Robin Hood-szindrómában szenvedő egyén ugyanúgy birkának gondol téged, mint te őt. Ezt érdemes észben tartani.

* Természetesen ezek a konteók önkényesen vannak válogatva. Az látszik, hogy a szerzőt leginkább azok érdeklik, amelyek politikai erőként szublimálódnak, tisztán áltudományos jellegű csak egy van benne: a Dan Brown-affér.
** Egy fontos kérdésben azért Aaronovitch nagyon ügyel a pártatlanságra: vallja, hogy az összeesküvés-elméletekre való hajlandóság nem egyik vagy másik politikai oldal sajátja, hanem pártfüggetlen dolog. Bush-sal kapcsolatban pont annyi vad konteó terjengett, mint Clintonnal kapcsolatban, csak épp előbbit a baloldal, utóbbit a jobboldal eszkábálta össze magának.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is LONG & details many of the big conspiracy theories; who killed JFK, RFK, Marilyn Monroe, Princess Diana & many others. Did Jesus screw up faking his own death? (I hadn't heard that one before.) Did astronauts visit us 10,000 years ago & how much truth is there to the DaVinci Code? (Actually, I read some of the true history of that one in a knock off book.) All of these questions & more are answered in painstaking detail.

The one big question about them is why was there ever any doubt? No, there wasn't & even though many of them still ramble on, there still isn't. Revisionist history - people believing what they want to believe, but often fame & fortune is what they're after & they can make millions. One guy involved in a Marilyn Monroe scam got caught & had to pay back $7 million!

Sometimes a far darker motive can be attached, such as Hitler's belief in "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" which was proved false (much was actually copied from an obscure satire about Napoleon III) several years before. Still, to him they spoke of a higher truth & so justified his beliefs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prot...

This is similar to the way people forgive inconsistencies in religious texts & twist them to their own extremist views. Hamas has incorporated part of it into their charter & it contains some in article 22 & 28(?).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_Co...

Most conspiracy theories aren't quite so lucrative or evil, though. Some wind up providing a lot of entertainment like the origins of The Da Vinci Code. As came out in a copyright lawsuit almost 10 years ago, the origins went back to the mid 20th century & even spurred several documentaries through the BBC. A book was later published, after the truth was known, & it was this 'history' that Brown's wife mentioned to him that spurred his creation. While all the books earned a lot of money, the original guys didn't make much.

Most contain blatant lies at their cores, yet are pushed as truth. The sheer brass of some of these people is incredible. Sometimes the details aren't very well known, so can slip by. An example is given of some old carving that the author (Van Denken?) claimed was of an elephant, but was actually a parrot. Not many had ever seen the carving, though. Other times, the details are quite well known, but are obscured by the purveyor of the scam by providing many other details & asking a lot of disturbing, leading questions, such as in the case of Princess Diana's death. If the car hadn't hit the pylon exactly as it had & if she had her seat belt on, she probably would have survived. Both of these facts cut through all the rest of the speculation & make it pretty obvious that bad thing just happen sometimes.

Why do we buy into them? Aaronovitch advances some theories. We like to know what others don't & they entertain us. We like the puzzles, mystery, & drama. History is boring to most people, but this sort isn't. Still, it's strange to me. I'd dismissed most of them almost immediately because the lack logic & they are needlessly complex. The contortions that people have gone through trying to explain how Diana was killed by a conspiracy are incredible. They even included a Bond-like gadget to gas the driver at the proper time, as if being half drunk at the time wasn't enough.

The hunger of the media for sensationalism is another driving force. Any off-the-wall theory that can be used to sell copy is not only fair game, but often difficult to vet properly in the time & with the staff available. Once in the public mind, there is a hunger for more. On top of that, each theory suggests others which obscure the truth, thus fueling the need for follow ups & people tend to remember the sensational so they linger. There can also be circular references that are tough for anyone except an expert to unravel. Since the experts are often in the employ of the gov't, their motives can be suspect.

Again, people need to look at the complexity, though. In many cases, dozens or more would have to agree before hand & sometimes thousands would have to keep silent afterward. Even if you can swallow the first, the latter is ridiculous.

He also points out that the theories are similar to memes or are fashionable depending much on the times. After Reagan & Gorbachev had their nuclear disarmament talks, nuclear conspiracy theories dropped off. He puts forth several other interesting points about our psychological quirks, both individually & as groups at the very end.

As I said, it's long, though. It would probably be a great print book if you want to look up one or two conspiracies or you're really into them. Listening to all of them just got old, but I'm giving it 4 stars anyway. I do wish there was a better TOC & that the parts were broken up more so that it was easier to go back & find specific information.

He concludes with some interesting warnings about how conspiracy theories have shaped our current world. One of the most obvious is Germany's acceptance of Hitler's idea that Jews were conspiring to crush them, but lists many others. Idiocies like McCarthyism didn't happen in a void & it is all too possible that we will make worse mistakes in the future. I just read one in South. Very well done & believable with disastrous consequences for thousands.

The reader was good most of the time, but he used voices (tones & accents) when quoting. That was awful. Thankfully there weren't many.

[Sesana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm fascinated by conspiracy theories, in the same way that some people rubberneck at car accidents. The tortured logic, the complete divorce from reality, the assumption that anything, literally anything, even aliens, is more plausible than the simple and conventional "official" explanation. There isn't as much as I would like on the subject that covers conspiratorial thinking in a truly skeptical way, so this was right up my alley. I especially liked the inclusion of two British theories that I hadn't heard of before (maybe they'd never really made the translation to US circles?). I could have done with a slightly deeper and longer analysis of why people will hold these theories, even long after they're rightly exposed as the nonsense they are, but I think a general need for a story covers it. Things can't just randomly happen, it doesn't make a good story. Beautiful, famous, and successful people can't just die, it doesn't make a good story. There has to be a deeper meaning, right? But real life isn't a story, of course, and sometimes there is no meaning.

[Phil Gonzales · Rating 2 out of 5]

A great book destroyed by a terrible recording. The narrator commits a major faux pas in non-fiction audiobook recording: he tries to do character voices. He has a great reading voice, but every time there is a quote, he throws on a voice. Problem: every Russian sounds like Boris Badenov, every French person sounds like Pepe Le Pew, every American sounds like a gangster (even FDR!) and don't get me started on the Japanese! Oh, christ! It's like an old Fu Manchu movie. Terrible. So distracting.

Still, a great book detailing the history of conspiracy theories from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion through today. Well researched and well documented. Recommended. Not the audio though.

[Gary · Rating 1 out of 5]

this man - like most middle class liberals - has an extreme gut prejudice against White working class people. Just be aware of this

[Marvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice treatise on the nature of conspiracy theories and why people believe them beyond any other reasonable explanation. The author looks at a number of past conspiracies going all the way back to the Priory of Sion, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Senator Joseph McCarthy's Commie baiting and the JFK assassination. . However it also includes more current theories like 9/11 truthers and birthers to name a few. While Aaronovitch does a good job in debunking them, this is not the main intention of his book. He is more interested in examining why we are so fascinated with the idea of conspiracies. He also want to show that an unskeptical look at these unlikely theories can actually be harmful to our society. It is a thorough and thoughtful book that is great reading for those who want to examine history and current events in a more thoughtful way. Unfortunately those who really need this book will not give it a second glance and Aaronovitch explains why that is true too.

[Rae · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an important book. A salient resource of debunkery that made me feel more sane.

Why only 3 stars then?

Because of the dry, convoluted writing style. It took me a few goes to get into it because of the heavy going, chewy, didactic, unengaging tone. It is the book that has been on my TBR shelf the longest as a result.

This is a subject that deserves a wide readership and many potential readers will be put off simply because it's such hard work. As a big fan of rationality, I feel this is a crying shame.

Persuasive and detailed, but requires a great deal of concentration.

[JenniferRuth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I guess we have all experienced a moment when someone you thought was quite a rational and sensible person suddenly espouses belief in a conspiracy theory, It might be about the 1969 moon landings or the events of 9/11 or global warming being a myth but whatever it is it nearly always implausible. If you point out the holes and impracticalities and the lack of cui bono in these theories you will often find yourself derided as being "close-minded" at best and "brain-washed" at worst. You may begin to wonder, what is it that makes otherwise sensible, educated people believe in the most ridiculous absurdities. If so, this book is for you.

Aaronovitch does a great job of dissecting a whole range of conspiracy theories. He doesn't focus just on evidence-based scepticism to break the theories apart but also spends a considerable amount of time looking into how and why conspiracy theories arise. I felt that this was far more interesting in dismissing the theories themselves. It is pretty easy to disprove most conspiracy theories because they rely on flimsy or twisted evidence, assumptions and vague feelings of how things "might have happened" - it has always seemed to me that people believe in these theories simply because they make sense to them personally. Often people will endorse one fanciful theory whilst dismissing others as crack-pot. What makes people have the ability to think rationally about one set of theories yet buy whole-heartedly into others? Aaronovitch tackles this very question quite thoroughly.

The question is, does it matter if people believe in easily falsifiable untruths? Do conspiracies have an effect on politics? Aaronovitch says yes. Specificially, he says "the belief in conspiracy theories is harmful in itself. It distorts our view of history and therefore of the present and - if widespread enough - leads to disastrous decisions." This is the core of the book and is argued very well.

The only place where the book falls down is in the conclusion. In attempting to pin down why people become so attached to conspiracy theories Aaronovitch dismisses the idea that sometimes a theory may represent a distrust of authority that is not entirely misplaced. There is a theory that the American government weakened levees in predominantly black areas before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. Such a conspiracy would have to include people in local, state and federal government - all of whom supposedly would be rabid racists with no conscious. Yet, it is interesting to look at why such a theory should come about. The American south does have a horrible history of racist oppression that has not entirely disappeared and institutional racism is still rife the world over. Therefore it does make some sense that there is a mistrust of officials would play a part in forming such conspiracy theories. Aaronovitch seems to dismiss this possibility and therefore almost comes across as dismissing racism itself as a conspiracy theory! I feel sure that this is not exactly what he meant but I felt that this angle deserved a deeper analysis than Aaronovitch gave it. Many other conspiracy theories are linked to a deep distrust of those in authority - sometimes with merit and sometimes not. I think another chapter (or even a book!) could be written on how we could distinguish between when a distrust has basis in reality and when it does not.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is on the side of rationality and reality. It is not a difficult read and Aaronovitch is very entertaining. The only thing that this book does not provide is a deeper analysis of the underlying emotions running through society that lead to such theories being formed. However, in term of factual and historical analysis this book is informative and a breath of fresh air.

[celestine · Rating 1 out of 5]

A deboonker wet dream of a book. It’s embarrassing how smug this book is while dismissing conspiracy theories that have actual legs to them (the susness surrounding the JFK and RFK assassinations are the two biggest and most obvious examples) especially considering recent research since this pile of garbage was published. He also frequently props up the looniest ideas of every fringe belief circle (like regarding the aforementioned assassinations, or 9/11) because those are easier to deboonk. I was actually feeling pretty good about this book in its introduction and first chapter but the chapter on the Moscow Trotskyite Trials singlehandedly turned me off (because like the Kennedy assassinations, recent documentary evidence has proved there are legs to the “conspiracy theories”) and Aaronovitch only dug his hole deeper from there. An example of how stupid this book can be in its dogmatic skeptic-brain is when he spends a chapter comparing relatively silly Marilyn Monroe conspiracy theories with the legitimately sus JFK assassination as if they are on the same level in terms of real, documented evidence of susness or foul play. On top of that, his stated goal of the book in the intro, that of determining the role of conspiratorial thinking in history, is totally lost almost immediately, as he instead decided to make a book where he spends each chapter just tearing apart and deboonking easy targets, only to very poorly try to bring it all together in the conclusion. He smugly dismisses materialist and postmodernist reflections on the cause or reasons behind conspiratorial thinking by the masses and instead tries to point to some kind of idealist (meant in the philosophical sense) crap about everyone in the modern age just being paranoid because they feel like it makes them matter more in the grand scheme and that conspiracists are just afraid that they’re not being thought of or something, honestly his own point in the conclusion isn’t even clear and it’s clear he doesn’t have the writerly skill to actually get it across. He also falls victim to something he points out in the last chapter— that even skeptics, like conspiracy theorists, are guilty of reaching easy conclusions based off of preconceived notions they’re looking to justify— somehow without ever realizing it. Embarrassing. Also the writing is just not compelling at all. It’s a total slog to get through, which even the positive reviews of this book mention. A waste of time.

[Krista · Rating 4 out of 5]

The believer in a conspiracy theory or theories becomes, in his own mind, the one in proper communion with the underlying universe, the one who understands the true ordering of things…conspiracy theories are actually reassuring. They suggest that there is an explanation, that human agencies are powerful, and that there is order rather than chaos. This makes redemption possible.

It was revealed in the newspaper this week that 14% of Canadians are considered anti-Semitic, agreeing with such statements as "Jews have too much control over global affairs" and "Jews are responsible for most of the world's wars". I have been fascinated with anti-Semitism for the longest time precisely because I don't understand it -- who are the fear-mongers that spread the idea that the Jewish people are a shadowy cabal that pull the strings behind the scenes? And when you compare the anti-Semites with the Jews, which side looks more conspiratorial?

In Voodoo Histories, David Aaronovitch answers these questions and more, starting with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and its role in launching the age of the modern conspiracy theory: That Jews had planned and caused WWI as war profiteers and to disrupt world governance. While there was undeniable proof at the time (1919) that the book was a forgery (it was originally a French satire about Napoleon's lust for power that was later edited to implicate Jews instead), the fact that it seemed to make sense of the devastating war that had left the populace feeling powerless and horrified made it irresistible. This acceptance of shadowy theories despite proof to the contrary is a recurring theme in Voodoo Histories, and here's what I found interesting about that: Although I have heard of these various conspiracy theories, I have never heard that there is definitive proof that the American Armed Forces hadn't cracked the Japanese codes during WWII (and so they couldn't have been aware of or supported the attack on Pearl Harbor); I have never heard that an expert panel (not the Warren Commission) proved that JFK could have been shot by Oswald alone; I have never heard that Princess Diana was definitely neither pregnant or engaged to Dodi Al Fayed (removing any tenuous excuse for her "assassination" by the Royal Family) -- it boggles my mind that the conspiracy side has been louder throughout the years than the plain facts; that even someone like me who doesn't go looking for conspiracies has heard the cranks but never their detractors (and honestly, I was sure that Oswald didn't act alone).

Now, I've never gone looking for conspiracies, but I do have a soft spot for pseudo-history, so was surprised at the inclusion of authors like Erich von Däniken and Graham Hancock, and especially, Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln and their book Holy Blood Holy Grail -- how especially disappointing to learn that the last three knew their theories were based on a hoax even before they went to print. I admit that I have spent many happy hours reading these authors' wacky alternative history theories (the pyramids were built by the Atlanteans! Ezekiel's Wheel was an alien spaceship! Jesus' descendants await a return to the throne of France!) and I would tend to think, "I don't believe it, so what's the harm?", but Aaronovitch explains:

I have now plowed through enough of these books to be able to state that, as a genre, they are badly written and, in their anxiety to establish their dubious neo-scholarly credentials, incredibly tedious. So, if we're not reading them for the prose, why are we? Why do we read bad history books that have the added distinction of not being in any way true or useful, and not buy in anything like the same numbers history books that are often far better written and much more likely to give us an understanding of who we are and where we came from?

Those are good questions: I have never bought a National Enquirer in my life (or even flipped through one in the checkout line to see the real and unretouched photos of the Elvis-Sasquatch baby), so why do I pollute my mind with nonsense because it has the veneer of scholarship? And since most of us agree that the Truthers and the Birthers are all crackpots, what's the harm of letting them have their pastimes? Aaronovitch explains that there is harm: Once upon a time, the crackpots poring over The Protocols of the Elders of Zion were young men named Hitler and Himmel, and based on a forged hoax of a book, these men tried to implement the Final Solution. In our modern times, within 5 years of 9/11, over a third of New Yorkers believed that the US government was either complicit in the attack on the Twin Towers or at least were involved in a coverup. When we look at the big picture of history, past conspiracies do affect modern political agendas -- and I must assume that includes persistent anti-Semitism, and especially as it is expressed in the poll I started with.

Voodoo Histories is an interesting and erudite book -- a relentless debunker of all the modern conspiracy theories -- and if I had one small complaint it would be that, as it was written by a British journalist, it includes a few scandals that I've never heard of and they were a little dull to me: Would you care if I told you your shoelaces are NSA listening devices and then disproved it in the next breath? Remember you heard it here first.

[Arthur Schwartz · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Occam's Razor,” a maxim that urges acceptance of the simplest and least convoluted solution to problems is often used to counter unorthodox claims. Often times it has utility and makes for good commonsense. However, the maxim is often over used. Simple explanations don't always work for the very simple reason that sometimes the reason things are the way they are is because they are not simple or ordinary. David Aaronovitch in Voodoo Histories: The role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History seems to apply Occam's Razor to every conspiracy he examines. He consistently attempts to debunk every conspiracy, but that like a dull knife the “Razer” leaves many rough edges. It is a transparent exercise in which the author seeks to counter the conspiracy theorists in an ad hominem attack using tidbits of psychology to explain why they think as the do! In an earlier writing—my book, Ethical Empowerment, I remarked that “Aaronovitch has written a good book” before launching into my critique. However, having had the opportunity to reread Voodoo Histories I feel I was too generous. His one-sided effort—while seemingly but disingenuously opening the book with a semblance of balance—comes off more like a diatribe than an objective treatment on the subject of conspiracy theory.

The most telling example of Aaronovitch's argument is his discussion of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Stalin's kangaroo trials of Trotskyites in the 1930s. The Protocols were, in fact, the work of Piotr Ivanovich Rachkovsky, head of the Russian secret service in Paris, and used Jews as scapegoats in order too distract the Russian people from the Czar's domestic problems. Similarly, tStalin's phony charges against the Trotskyites was part of the prelude to Stalin's mass murders and executions. Aaronovitch uses the Protocols and the Trotsyite trials as examples of false conspiracies and, indeed, they were. Both were entirely fabricated. However, the irony is that they were both government sanctioned conspiracies! The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was a forgery and a devastating conspiracy against worldwide Jewry. And the fabricated Trotskyite trials were a Stalinist conspiracy against political opponents and, by extension, millions of Russians. Thus, while Aaronovitch represents these as examples of false conspiracies they may well be the clearest examples that exist of governmental orchestrations of conspiracy.

The McCarthy era witch hunt in the United States in the 1950s can be viewed in he same way. Aaronovitch, using Occam's razor, shows that the accusations of broad-scale treachery of American citizens on behalf of the Soviet Union was largely false, and the ruination of careers and reputations was one of the lowest and most shameful periods of American history. Indeed, the internal conspiracy against the United States did not exist. However, there was a conspiracy. And, once again, it was orchestrated by elements of the U.S. Government: the House Committee on Un-American Activities and Joseph McCarthy's Senate Committee. Here again, Aaronovitch sees the alleged conspiratorial targets largely perpetrated by governmental agencies as examples of false conspiracy. But somehow, the conspiratorial activities of the governmental organs or agencies that made the false accusations escaped the mark or stigma of conspiracy.

Predicably, Aaronovitch dismisses the JFK assassination and the 9-11 conspiracy theories, and many others. The focus seems to be that there is no credible evidence, so those who harbor conspiratorial beliefs think the way they do because—for various reasons, help them cope with the stresses of modern society and culture. His categorical dismissal is, in my view, a patently weak and even reactionary attitude. I was very interested to notice that Aaronovitch does not—I believe—even mention the Vietnam War. You know the one, the war in which the “Pentagon Papers” discovered and released by Daniel Ellsberg revealed untruths and fabrications that dramatically escalated the conflict. Far more American soldiers died in Vietnam than on 9/11. It has been conclusively demonstrated that governmental orchestrations of conspiracies have occurred Regarding 9/11, I strongly encourage the reader to view 9/11 Explosive Evidence – Experts Speak Out produced by Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth. Originally broadcast on PBS, the documentary film is readily available and viewable online.

Voodoo Histories is not a terrible book. It is well written and packed with a lot of information. But the psychological explanations of conspiracy significantly compromise and skew the book's objectivity.

[Hans De Jonge · Rating 1 out of 5]

Terrible bad book full of lies.
Book based upon a theory about everything that really has happened in history is an incident. David Aaronovitch is a notorious Zionist who sees every factual argument about a Jewish conspiracy as an attempt victimizing and attacking Israel. Mary Rizzo has written on Twitter a humorist critique about all the publications of David Aaronovitch in Jewish Times Online: "From Aggression to Victim-hood: David Aaronovitch" (or How the Mighty Fall) See Below
Almost everybody who is not Jewish and has an argument with a Jew "Must Be An Anti-Semite" even if a Jew criticizes Israel she/he is supposed to be an anti-Semite. Voodoo Histories is in the same order. The official 911 conspiracy theory about the 19 Muslims who knock 3 sky-scrapers down with plastic box cutters and 2 airplanes must be true. The factual true story's are "Voodoo History". David Aaronovitch has written a ridiculous book about "history" that cannot be true. For instance John F. Kennedy was shot according Aaronovitch by "lone wolf" Lee Harvey Oswald. The fact is he was bluntly shot from the front. 911 was done by Muslims and office fires according Aaronovitch. The fact is the 3 buildings are brought down by explosives. In short a Zionist book.

http://stgvisie.home.xs4all.nl/VISIE/...

Written by Mary Rizzo -
http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/news...
Like anybody, we love to watch false idols crumble, and when rabid Zionist and war advocate Aaronovitch hit the floor with a crash, it was actually one of the most amusing moments in recent political public events. We got to hear, and in some cases, to see the man who considers himself to be an iconoclast living the role of the icon tossed to the floor. And he’s stomping-foot mad about it!

Aaronovitch isn’t what one might consider well known outside of the UK, his argument is actually quite provincial if one can wade through his less than captivating prose, but in his own eyes, he’s quite something. That's him in the photo, giving one of those Come Hither looks he must think the ladiesdavid_aaronovitch-come-hitherfind irresitible. To the unacquainted, this is a man who used to spread a tribalistic ideology and colonial war mongering that would sit well in any imperial war room, and he would wage his battle cries in particular through a moderately progressive UK paper, The Guardian and a more conservative one, the Times. Can we consider it a promotion to now find his lame writing in the really exclusive and excitingly hip London Shtetl weekly, namely the Jewish Chronicle? It took Aaronovitch three weeks to assimilate his humiliating defeat in Oxford when he was one of the speakers on a panel that was about a topic that is considered to be “hot”, one about Antisemitism in the UK, and after that pause of reflection, it’s pretty disappointing to see the guy come up with such a weak piece. It is an attempt to soul search, but judging by the result, he maybe should have taken a few more weeks to get a few more ideas to rub together. Watching someone lick their wounds is never interesting, and self-pity at least should have a bit of self-irony to it. But the man takes himself far too seriously, but what would we come to expect from someone who shouts at people, “How DARE you applaud! YOU, Sir, are an antisemite!”

He bares what we can for expediency’s sake call a soul that he has been searching and in the subtitle tells his thousand or so readers: “I imagined this anti-Jewish Jew’s own words would show him up, but they were applauded”. He realises that in a Jewish paper, he has to appeal to the important matters first, namely, “who’s a Jew”. After getting that crucial matter out of the way, one is left with the realisation that if someone operates from some kind of judgment that is so utterly wrong about the need to drive the UK into an invasion against Iraq, making a value error about his own success in front of a paying public at a literary event in Oxford should be no surprise. Humiliation and failure always hurts, but what’s a bit of humiliation compared to being responsible for endorsing the upheaval of a foreign country that has cost the lives of one and a half million civilians?

He doesn’t seem to have that much of a sense of perspective either, if he is missing what matters to people. Let’s see what he wrote: “In essence,” says Aaronovitch, Atzmon’s argument is that Jews are responsible for their own historic misfortunes due to their tribalism and aggression.” Well, the man writing in the Jewish Chronicle about his own poorly managed public speaking event did bring that down on himself, and if he’s blamed for convincing others to get behind the Shock and Awe aggression stuff, this fatal responsibility should weigh on him too. It seems he has captured the essence of some points Gilad Atzmon was making about Jewish identity and its historical responsibilities. In other words, Atzmon suggests that Jews and those who write for Jewish papers, like our subject in question, might think twice and start to take responsibility for their own fate and glimpse into the mirror occasionally. Aaronovitch is very unhappy with such a suggestion. He prefers obviously to keep advocating wars forever, while being an Israeli Hasbara Committee author. With this kind of track record, how could he be stunned, upset or surprised that people are going to be intelligent or attentive enough to just connect the dots and hiss the man out of the premises?

But then the self-confessional begins as Aaronovitch admits why he took the fatal challenge in accepting to confront Atzmon in public. “I was too proud and arrogant not to believe I could show a roomful of British people that a line was in danger of being crossed.” Apparently as the audio link proves (click on the podcast), Aaronovitch was indeed silly not to realise that Atzmon possesses far more consistency and clarity, as well as having the not small benefit of being humanistic and a capable writer, all of this leading to popularity. Considering the extensive research he made of Atzmon’s writing - if we want to imagine for a moment he did it himself and not accept the suggestion made on Aaronovitch Watch that it was compiled for him from the other “look like a leftist and talk like a neocon” at Harry’s Place - Aaronovitch should have grasped that he just did not stand a chance. To win the applause of the public, one has to have something to offer.


A little further on in this vapid article Aaronovitch provides us with an explanation of his total failure. “A co-speaker, arranged at the last minute, was the journalist Nick Cohen. This was worrying, not because Nick is anything other than excellent,” Aaronovitch states, and a round of drinks or dinner shall be due for this hyperbolic comment, “but because British audiences hate ganging-up. If it was two beauteous elves against one hideous orc, they would side with the orc.” Man, if this is how he understood the dynamics, he should have left the research aside and just insisted that Azog be accompanied by the Phantom of the Opera, that way, it would be a fair discussion!
beauteous-elves
(at the left, how Aaronovitch fancies himself and Cohen). For those out of nursery school or who don’t accept the freaky math of our correspondent, the explanation was far simpler. Our hoity-toity Jewish Chronicler had nothing to say except to just read Atzmon extracts that were - shock - very convincing. Might just be something that explains Atzmon’s huge readership. Listening to the recordings for those who missed out on the other beauteous elf, Cohen had nothing to say in general except to pour poison on Islam. In an academic platform, the reality is that the two stood zero chance against Atzmon.

Interestingly enough, when addressing the Jewish reader, Aaronovitch employs some racial and physical categories to get his point across. Equating Atzmon with an orc was just one example. But here is far more revealing one: “Towards the back was the unmistakable Aryan presence of Michele Renouf, of the Number One Ladies.” Aaronovitch, who campaigns against antisemitism should know that referring to people by employing inflammatory racial references is nothing less than crude racism. However, as Atzmon said during the event, racism is a Jewish territory in the UK. Jewish Chronicle authors such as Aaronovitch get away with it, don’t they?

“From there it was downhill,” admits Aaronovitch as he watched the room drinking from Atzmon’s well. Aaronovitch and Cohen, the leading advocates of the Iraq war in the British press were confronted with Atzmon’s “diatribe about warmongers” when he was pointing at them again and again. “If you want to know what is the root cause of Antisemitism, here they are, sitting in front of you (Cohen/Aaronovitch)” was basically the recognition that the public was there making. If Jews want to save themselves, they better disassociate themselves from wars that are committed in their names or advocated by their Jewish Chronicle writers. It’s telling that Cohen and Aaronovitch can’t interpret this as one of those “I hope you’re happy now” moments. People actually DO resent their nation being dragged into wars while the journalists are sitting pretty when not actually shouting at them to stop showing their approval of someone else.

orcs(at the right, how Aaronovitch thinks the public is required to view Atzmon) Towards the end of his confession, Aaronovitch admits being staggered by a Jew who supports Atzmon. Aaronovitch decided to act on this shocking scene. “Later on that evening, I emailed this man and asked how it could be that he was so interested in Jewish history and the early experience of British Jews, and could end up co-applauding the Judeophobia of an idiotic musician, alongside Renouf.” Seemingly, in spite of Jewish emancipation and 200 years of Jewish assimilation, Aaronovitch expects Jews to act as one people. Pretty astonishing to hear such an idea from a man who advocated the invasion of Iraq in the name of the ‘Western notion of liberty’. When it comes to Jews, Aaronovitch expects total intellectual and spiritual submission.

Writing for a Jewish paper, Aaronovitch must end with the tragic victim exposition talking about an iconic ‘Jewish student’ who came to him afterwards ‘in tears.’

Aaronovitch fails to tell us why exactly the Jewish student was crying. Was it because the war in Iraq didn’t work as had been promised by Aaronovitch? Or maybe was it because of the Madoff swindling affair that inflicted so much loss on so many Jewish charities. Perhaps it was just because the tag team bullying tactics of Cohen /Aaronovitch proved to be a complete disaster and the Jewish student doesn’t have any other devices left at his disposal. It would be great if Aaronovitch would be kind enough to tell us and to remove any form of speculation. When a Jew cries, we all are entitled to know why.

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine who is not politically astute sent me a text asking if anyone ever got arrested for that “pizza thing.” I had no idea what he was talking about so I pressed him. He said, “You know, that child sex ring.”

Oh yeah. That.

Granted, he sent me this text two months after some gun-bearing idiot had gone to that pizza shop looking to solve things for himself. My friend, again who is not politically conscious, was referring to the famous right-wing conspiracy that the Clintons and the DNC were running the sex ring out of the pizza place based on an intentional misreading of leaked emails.

If David Aaronovitch were ever to update this book, that would be a great example. People dig conspiracies for a variety of reasons, namely how it helps explain their world. My apolitical friend, who definitely doesn’t care for liberals like me, found it easier to believe some bs on the news to justify his worldview than actually do research for himself. As do many.

What Aaronovitch does a stellar job of is showing how fringe conspiracy theories work themselves into the public consciousness. From Nazi Germany to Soviet Russia to Britain and finally, to the home front here, no empire is too powerful to resist the lure of the easy answer. Aaronovitch debunks them but he also autopsies the political circumstances that allow conspiracy theories to enter the political arena.

This book definitely needs an update for the times we live in, especially since the internet has gone into hyperdrive by making everyone even more conspiracy-obsessed than before.

[Daniel Fitzgerald · Rating 1 out of 5]

Kinda smug in terms of the author's voice and approach to the subject. The arguments weren't terribly solid--for instance, his main criteria for discussing any given conspiracy theory was that he could easily claim to debunk it. The huge field of JFK nonsense is given less space than the Harrodown Hill incident. Aaronovitch also doesn't always do a good job of describing and differentiating between the various conspiracy theorists and their methods, arguments, and potential motivations; however, the author does take time to say nasty things about Gore Vidal whether his argument warrants them or not. In the end, this work pays very little attention given to how and why people employ conspiratorial thinking--and what is there is fairly condescending.

Another gripe-- Aaronovitch frequently mixes fact and fiction. For example, in several chapters he uses Eco's novel Foucault's Pendulum as evidence against real-world conspiratorial thinking. He (sometimes rightly, sometimes spitefully) reduces most/many conspiracies to anti-Semitism, which is kind of a jerk-ass move to reinforce his argument. Overall, I found this work to be a better example of peevish sniping than of disciplined skepticism.

In short, an interesting topic poorly executed.

[C. Varn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting book and one that Aaronovich can write compellingly, but elements of it seemed lost in defending a political centrism that itself maybe ahistorical and other elements didn't convince one that the conspiracy theories involved actually shaped modern history that much. His early cases about the Stalinist purges, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and McCarthy hunts are interesting. His dismissal of people like Flynn seems unfair and implications that many were antisemites, which is true, seems to also be aimed at people who weren't/ Aaronovich's tracking of interlocking conspiracies are actually quite interesting and informative, and many of the same names come up over and over again. Aaronovich's political commentary weaken the book and his discussion of the human tendency to seek not only patterns but patterns confirming prior bias would have been better addressed early on.

This book is well-written, and compelling in its information, but the closer it got to the current, the harder it was to see if case of effects of conspiracy where actually as strong as his early examples. Furthermore, his case seems to be lost in the details of the conspiracies themselves and by maintaining a kind of political center that may not be entirely warranted.

[Anita Dalton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book but not for the reasons I purchased it. As someone who has spent a lot of time wallowing in conspiracy at different times in my life, there was little new for me in this book (though this is not to say there was not some content unfamiliar to me – there was and it was fascinating). Moreover, this book is more a debunking attempt than really a look at how conspiracy theory has shaped modern history for the average person. No one can walk away from this book and feel that any of the examples of conspiracy, their formation and later belief, has affected the modern canon of history, aside from the JFK assassination. Of course people whose personal beliefs lie on the fringe of reason hold conspiracy theory close to their hearts, but I think it is overblown to seriously suggest that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the “plot” to kill Princess Diana in a random car accident with a drunk driver, or Hillary Clinton supposedly murdering Vince Foster is ever going to achieve the level of mainstream belief that will reflect these fringe beliefs as history. Read my entire review here.

[Kevin Cecil · Rating 4 out of 5]

My Conspiracy Theory: Every morning Alex Jones sticks his head up his own ass and farts delusions into his mouth. Mr. Jones then transmits his Delusional Fart Breath (DFB) into the atmosphere via dull, nonsensical, and paranoid speeches, which are spread to the general population via youtube videos and/or radiowaves.

Be advised: DFB is a contagious airborn toxin which can infect anyone who sees patterns in nothing (and/or everything), and likes to think they know more than the rest of the blind "sheeple."

Supporting Ron Paul and telling others to "wake up" are common symptoms of DFB.

If you find yourself in a conversation with a patient suffering a strong case of DFB, ask them why they have not yet been murdered by whatever nefarious and omnipotent organization they are exposing. This will not cure them, but may shut them up long enough for you to change the subject, or escape.

[Stephen Hayes · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is said that there are two main theories of history: the conspiracy theory and the cock-up theory. In this book the author examines some of the conspiracy theories of the last century or so, and comprehensively debunks them.

But debunking and refuting conspiracy theories is not the main purpose of the book. It rather shows that whether or not there are conspiracies, beliefs in conspiracy theories often do more to shape history than the conspiracies the theorists believe in. An example is the Priory of Sion, which, according to the conspiracy theorists, is a centuries-old secret society at the centre of a conspiracy to restore the Merovingian dynasty and thus to change European and possibly world history. In fact it is a hoax, but those who were taken in by the hoax made their fortunes out of it, and influenced the beliefs of millions while doing so.

Let me say at the outset that I tend to believe put more weight on the cock-up theory of history. Not that I don't believe that there are conspiracies; there are lots of them. But most real conspirators also make cock ups, like Guy Fawkes.

David Aaronovitch covers most of the better-known conspiracy theories of the 20th and early 21st centuries: the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Stalin's show trials of the 1930s, the theory that US President Franklin Roosevelt deliberately provoked the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbour, the McCarthy witch-hunts, and the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy (with side trips on the deaths of Marilyn Monrow and Princess Diana).

Then there is the death of an elderly British rose grower, which a crusading MP tried to link to the sinking of the General Belgrano in the Falklands War.

And the Priory of Sion gets the full treatment too -- how three British journalists fell for a hoax, hook, line and sinker, and wrote their book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail on the basis of it, and then sued Dan Brown for stealing their plot in The da Vinci code. Their suit failed, because they found themselves in an awkward dilemma. If their books were history, as they claimed, then there was nothing to prevent a novel writer from basing a novel on it.

There is the 9/11 conspiracy theory, which maintains that the US government conspired to murder its own citizens (rather like the Pearl Harbour theory), by bringing down the World Trade Center in New York in a controlled demolition. One version of the theory even maintained that the aircraft that flew into the buildings were elaborate optical illusions created by holography. It is at that point that one surely needs to apply Ockham's razor, if not long before. Perhaps this illustrates something that G.K. Chesterton once said: that truth is always stranger than fiction because fiction is a product of the human mind and therefore congenial to it.

Unlike most of the other events that the book describes that gave rise to conspiracy theories, I watched much of this one live on TV. And what had me gobsmacked, while watching the twin towers burn before they collapsed, was not the scale of the conspiracy, but the scale of the cock-up. Of course at that stage nothing was known about the conspiracy, though it later transpired that a conspiracy there undoubtedly was. A group of men did conspire to hijack four aircraft and to fly them into buildings.

But what struck me watching the buildings burn, with hundreds of people in them, was that the United States Air Force, arguably the most powerful and well-equipped in the world, apparently made no effort at all to rescue anyone from the buildings. Yet our much smaller South African Air Force had successfully managed to rescue people from burning buildings and a sinking ship. At the time it really did seem like a monumental cock-up.

In some of the earlier instances David Aaronovitch shows that the real conspirators were actually the authors and disseminators of the conspiracy theories themselves. In the case of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion the real conspiracy was not that described in the document, but those who forged and distributed the document, including Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and Henry Ford (both of whom later apologised).

In the case of the Stalin show trials the real conspirators were not those wccused, convicted and subsequently executed for masterminding a Trotskyist plot, but the Stalinist government and prosecution who made the bogus accusations.

Later in the book, however, this connection becomes less apparent -- the comparison between the bogus conspiracies cooked up by the conspiracy theorists and actual conspiracies. And thinking about this, I begin to wonder why. The author deals with the conspiracy theories about the the sinking of the General Belgrano in the Falklands War, but says nothing of the conspiracy of the Argentine Generals that led to the war itself -- and their regime was just as unpleasant as that of Saddam Hussein or Hosni Mubarak. And just over the Andes there was the conspiracy that toppled the elected government of Salvador Allende, and installed the unpleasant dictator Colonel Pinochet in his place.

While devoting much space to the bogus conspiracy theories about the Bush Administration attacking its own citizens in the twin towers, the author says little about the WMD conspiracy that was the Bush Administration's excuse for the invasion of Iraq. Wasn't that a conspiracy? Of course the author might say that that was a real conspiracy (though to all accounts it seems that he favoured the invasion of Iraq) while the other was a bogus conspiracy. But wouldn't comparison be useful?

In specularing on why people actually believe conspiracy theories, and sometimes go to great lengths to promote and propagate them, the author mentions several theories, including one about paranoia. He notes that most of the people who believe and propagate these theories are middle-class educated people. Paranoia is defined as a mental disorder charactersed by persistent delusions, and often hallucinations. Sometimes these delusions may be of persecution. But, as someone once said, just because you're paranoid it doesn't mean that they're not out to get you. There used to be psychological tests that had statements that you had to give yes or no answers to, and some of them contained statements like "My telephone is tapped." And if you answered "Yes" to it, it was scored as a symptom of paranoia, even if your telephone was tapped, as in South Africa in the 1960s-1980s it might well be.

I started this book thinking that I was a firm adherent of the cock-up theory of history. Now I'm not so sure. I'm no less convinced that there are lots of bogus conspiracy theories out there, including all the ones he mentioned. But what about the real ones?

[Kent Winward · Rating 4 out of 5]

The premise of the book isn't exactly a conspiracy theory, but almost: Conspiracy theories end up impacting world history. This is the chilling power we have as humans -- we make up stories and they are or can be completely fictional. We attach meaning to them, we act on them, and we end up changing history. It is particularly glaring when Aaronovitch shows how history has been impacted and continues to be impacted by clearly false conspiracy theories, but it does set up an intriguing method for evaluating history -- how do false beliefs impact history?

Howard Zinn's response was to counteract the historical narrative with a narrative of the people, but even that represents an attempt to change the belief structure of the people reading the histories. And this is where it gets tricky. We are social creatures, bound up in societies. Religious and political beliefs, for example, have propelled groups forward and into action, often to the detriment of the world. That impact is easier to see in the extreme conspiracy theories, but harder to discern when we get into shades of gray, but that doesn't diminish the need to understand how a group's beliefs can create history.

[Eirik Sande · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nesten så jeg drar ned vurderingen for verdens minst seriøse Goodreadsregistrering.

En særdeles god og grundig gjennomgang av konspirasjonsteorier fra Sions vise protokoller fram til Barack Obamas fødselssertifikat. Boka får meg ofte til å lure på hvordan et kapittel om Trumps presidentperiode og Qanon ville sett ut, og regner med det ville blitt utsatt for en like hard avkreftelse som kapittelet om drapet på Hilda Murrell i 1984 og teoriene om Bush og 9/11.

På den annen side kan den bli litt insisterende på småting som ikke føles like viktig, og den er kanskje noe lang (kapittelet om nevnte Murrell føles langdrygt), samtidig som den har et teoretisk bakteppe som føles litt halvveis. Likevel verdt å lese for alle som er glade i (teorier rundt og avkreftelse av) konspirasjonsteorier.

[Б. Долгорсүрэн · Rating 5 out of 5]

1947 оноос хойшхи дэлхий дахинаа алдартай 7 томоохон үйл явдлын талаар албан ёсны мэдээ мэдээлэл үнэн эсэхийг яагаад эргэлзээтэй байдаг тухай бичжээ. Жишээ нь, Нел Амстэрданг саран дээр яг буусан уу аль эсвэл Америк НАСА-гаас зохион байгуулсан кино зураг авалт шиг зүйл байв уу? Диана гүнжийн үхэл золгүй нэг автын осол байв уу аль эсвэл Английн хатан хааны гэр бүлийн захиалгаар үйлдэгдсэн хэрэг үү? 9/11ны халдлага террористын үйлдэл үү, аль эсвэл урьдчилан бэлтгэгдсэн дайныг өдөөх Америкын явуулсан үйл ажиллагаа юу гээд...

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is interesting but some times, listening to the audiobook, I felt lost following the train of conspiracies. I think I would have enjoyed a little more structure for my reading experience. But it was definitely a fascinating read and the author's voice was entertaining.

[Emmy B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

RTC

[Temaris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm nearly at the end of the book -- some three pages in fact, having just looked -- and ... I don't know.

The author clearly has a very strong sense of Fact and Not!Fact. He spends a lot of time reviewing how Not!Facts get treated as facts, and diagramming the way conspiracy theories develop, interlock, and support each others lies -- the same names over and over.

And yet. If he does it in the last three pages, then it's more than I'm expecting. I'll do him the credit of assuming he wants you to draw your own conclusions. And so: human beings crave the illusion of order and narrative structure. The first thing we do out of any event is turn it into a narrative -- beginning, middle, end. Conspiracy theories save us from the terrible fear that there is no one in charge. We're all just making it up as we go along. Control is an illusion. Shit happens because we don't stop it in time,a nd we're not perfect.

It struck me very much, and I don't know how much of this was Aaronovitch's framing, that conspiracy theories are a way of letting yourself believe someone's in charge; there *is* a plan; you *can* fight against the things you fear.

Of course, it's a lie. Life doesn't come in narratives; people do things that make no sense. No one is omniscient and endowed with precognition. That hindsight is always 20/20. it's much easier to pick out the significant stuff once it's all over and you can decide which bits *were* the significant stuff.

It falls in closely with something that I've taken from Pratchett, on Pan Narrans -- the storytelling ape. We construct stories to make reality look manageable. They are lies, and we implicitly understand they are lies: incomplete and inaccurate. And as long as we remember that they are lies that are based on facts, and not lies based on lies, they are a useful shorthand. Right up until someone takes a French satire about Napoleon III and turns it into the Protocols of Zion, and causes untold grief, pain and death thereby.

It made fascinating reading, but the author didn't take the book where I expected him to. A little heavy going, repetitive in places, and his anecdotes re heavyhanded and unnecessary (possibly since I buy the basic premise that bright people can be gullible and credulous, given the right topic), and he starts losing his grip on his contempt every now and again. But interesting. And of course, one is free to draw ones own conclusions.

ETA: The last three pages *did* go into the tendency of the human mind to see patterns and construct narrative. I still think he'd have done better to pull the thread out sooner, and thereby strengthen the premise by illustrating his point rather than lining up all the illustrations and going: see what I mean?

[Nicola · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had a friend go off the deep end with his conspiracy theories. He would spend half the night following hyperlinks, say that he couldn't even tell me about all the things he knows, point out all the unmarked cars in our small town, build his bunker in the woods, and worry about all the people photographing him. This wouldn't have necessarily ended our friendship completely--there was room for fascination--but because he was so pretentious about all the conspiracies he was privy to, it was really hard to be around him. Needless to say, our friendship couldn't and didn't survive.

I enjoyed Aaronovitch's book, though, ultimately, I wanted more on the psychology behind my friend's behavior than the minutiae of each conspiracy theory. I definitely learned more about the theories out there--I had no idea that Clinton was thought a murderer. It also seems ironic that so many conpiracy theories are conspiracies in themselves--for example, the fear of the Jews as conspirators escalated into the persecution of the Jews or the alleged conspiracy of the communists lead to the real conspiracy of McCarthyism.

The idea that part of the motivation for the rise of conspiracy theorists and for some people's paranoia in general relates to an underlying fear of indifference or unimportance rang true for me. As Aaronovitch quoted from Susan Sontag, "I envy paranoids; they actually feel that people are paying attention to them."

[Nikaty · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despite hearing good things, and being excited to start reading as soon as it arrived, this book has proved to be a major slog. The first section dealing with the Protocols was interesting, a really good piece that I wish had been a lone article because 100 pages in there has been nothing to come close to it so far and I don't have high hopes for this changing. That first part is the only reason I'm giving 2 stars.
This is specifically a writing style issue to me; despite being interested in the topic and having the urgency of needing to read it as part of research, I still have to absolutely force myself to read a few pages at a time because it's so dry. I'm also not sure if it's just a problem with me but I feel as if despite this being a sort of historical account, events are not particularly well-explained and in spite of me going back and re-reading several times, Aaronovitch's train of thought remains unclear at several points.
It's not the worst thing in the world but I'm only going to push through because I have to - not recommended unless you have a big interest in conspiracy theories and need to pad out your book collection.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book looks at a series of modern conspiracy theories, from pre-Nazi anti-Semitic rumors and Stalinist show trials to 9/11 Truthers. Aaronovitch's take is frequently ironic in tone--when I noticed that the chapter on Dan Brown-style Grail/Catholic conspiracy theories was called 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail, Holy Shit,' I knew I was going to like it. If you have a pet conspiracy, you'll probably hate it, but if you're willing to look at rumors with a healthy dose of skepticism, it's a pleasure to see myths exploding left and right. If I had a complaint, it was that I wished he'd spent more time on conspiracy theories in minority communities--as is evidenced in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, not to mention the rumors abounding after Hurricane Katrina, marginalized views of history can have a profound impact on minorities' lives and the way they perceive the world. This is something of which historians, scholars in general, and the wider public need a greater understanding, if we're to heal some of the wounds in our society.