Conspiracies of Conspiracies: How Delusions Have Overrun America

by Thomas Milan Konda

It’s tempting to think that we live in an unprecedentedly fertile age for conspiracy theories, with seemingly each churn of the news cycle bringing fresh manifestations of large-scale paranoia. But the sad fact is that these narratives of suspicion—and the delusional psychologies that fuel them—have been a constant presence in American life for nearly as long as there’s been an America.

In this sweeping book, Thomas Milan Konda traces the country’s obsession with conspiratorial thought from the early days of the republic to our own anxious moment. Conspiracies of Conspiracies details centuries of sinister speculations—from antisemitism and anti-Catholicism to UFOs and reptilian humanoids—and their often incendiary outcomes. Rather than simply rehashing the surface eccentricities of such theories, Konda draws from his unprecedented assemblage of conspiratorial writing to crack open the mindsets that lead people toward these self-sealing worlds of denial. What is distinctively American about these theories, he argues, is not simply our country’s homegrown obsession with them but their ongoing prevalence and virulence. Konda proves that conspiracy theories are no harmless sideshow. They are instead the dark and secret heart of American political history—one that is poisoning the bloodstream of an increasingly sick body politic.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Politics, Conspiracy Theories, American History, Society

432 pages, Hardcover

Published March 15, 2019

Reviews

[Sumit RK · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Conspiracies of Conspiracies, Thomas Konda traces America’s obsession with conspiracies from the early days of the republic till today. Though the book focuses on American people & conspiracies, I believe the theme of book is universal, especially in today’s Post-Truth Era.

Conspiracies of Conspiracies details centuries of sinister conspiracies—from antisemitism and anti-Catholicism to UFOs and reptilian humanoids. Thomas Konda has analysed several conspiracy theories, has shown their origins and how they fit into the conspiracy world. From the Invention of Conspiracy Theory to the Emergence of the Hidden Hand & New World Order to Pan-Ideological Conspiracy Theories: Denialism and Cover-Up, the book covers a range of topics. Konda explains why these theories have recently made a comeback on the political stage and dissects a media landscape that increasingly tends to detect conspiracy everywhere.

Konda attempts to explore the mindsets that lead people toward these conspiracies and how these conspiracy theories have influenced history, particularly United States history. This book also attempts to track the origins of some of the more prevalent conspiracy theories like America leaving the gold standard, Communism being a Jewish conspiracy among others, since many have common origins and mostly they overlap and contradict each other.

This book doesn't come with easy answers and you may need some background knowledge of history including the Illuminati, the Free Masons etc to truly grasp it all but it does help you understand it. Overall, it’s a well researched and well written book offering some new insights. 3.5/5

Many thanks to the publishers University of Chicago Press, the author Thomas Milan Konda and NetGalley for the ARC.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

conspiracism—a mental framework, a belief system, a worldview that leads people to look for conspiracies, to anticipate them, to link them together into grander overarching conspiracy. [Emphasis added]

- Thomas Milan Konda

We do ourselves no favors by characterizing lunatic irrationalities as “conspiracy theories.” The word “theory” alone creates an aura of legitimacy “according to…predispositions [which are] fitted [to] the events of the day into an already established conspiratorial framework.” Thomas Milan Konda’s term is more precise, they do not exist in isolation. A conspiracist’s mindset does not acknowledge empirical reality, but rather “creates a dualistic narrative in which the malevolent conspirators secretly work to destroy everything that is good and pure.” Frustration becomes a motivational cudgel, and if “they” (whoever they might be) can’t be convinced, then “they” are complicit in conspiracies.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way. A book threading together more than two centuries of conspiratorial thinking and behavior in American politics might well be considered conspiratorial in and of itself. Konda’s work was published prior to the pandemic and well before the January 6 terrorist uprising in Washington, DC. The added perspective of what all of us saw and experienced being twisted and corrupted into “truths” for millions of people adds substance to his narrative.

Widespread acceptance of conspiracisms have historically been on the fringes of society, historical oddities feeding frightening but rarely, if ever, existential derangements. Their language is not just that of kooks, but of kooks in numbers that can influence and shape the world in which we live. Anything that counters them is not just disagreement, it is a reason to bar dissenters from exercising basic rights of citizenship.

Today conspiracisms support Putin’s reign in Russia, Orban in Hungary, the AfD in Germany, Le Pen-ism in France, Netanyahu in Israel, and most fearfully, one of the two major political parties in the U.S., where “owning the libs” is THE political goal of the Right. This is not new.

After the Civil War, so-called confederates bemoaned “the lost cause,” prefiguring a similar lie, the “stab-in-the-back theory” reactionary Germans blamed for the loss of World War I. Henry Ford promoted and amplified the conspiracist, fictional Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the United States. As Richard Evans describes in The Hitler Conspiracies , this was one of many conspiratorial myths laying the foundation for the Third Reich. As Konda explains, they also are meant to undermine.

In the internationalist conspiracy…the ‘government’ is a mental construct, an abstraction created by the conspiracist…The ‘government’ is composed of whatever organizations and people the conspiracist chooses…The people who run this network are largely unknown to the public; they work behind the scenes and their decisions are not public…

One way to shake up the public was to personalize the conspiracy, as had been done by listing members of the hidden hand who controlled the New Deal…This barrage of invective against academics expanded into a wider mistrust of expertise, policy makers, literary icons, even scientists. Joseph Kamp, in a pamphlet attacking “the crusade for world government,” characterized its proponents as “intellectuals’ without intelligence.”

The New Deal spurred even more conspiracisms in decades to come. Joe McCarthy based his entire career on conspiratorial claims, which spilled over to oppose the Civil Rights Movement. They tailored anti-Semitism and racism to fit the facts, including one about the “role” public education had in poisoning young minds. These lies and justifications lived for decades, as when

…long-time public school opponent and Reagan administration education advisor Charlotte Iserbyt…singled out for particular opprobrium “critical thinking” as “nothing but pure unadulterated destruction of absolute values of right and wrong.”

…over the years a mind-control conspiracy theory with its own raison d'être began to take shape, at least to the degree that conspiracists became increasingly fixated on the techniques of mind control while paying less attention to its purpose…[breeding a] dominant theme [of an] ever-increasing mistrust of the federal government.

In the past thirty years, media technology has turbo-charged them, quickly moving from faxes and new-fangled wireless phones to the digital age of proliferating social media. Additionally, FOX News-driven influence became a force in the United States, feeding an exponential acceptance of conspiracisms. The power social media “likes” and the comfort they provided had ever-growing influence., creating a metastasizing cancer to not only threaten American governance, but democracy worldwide. It was “legitimized” by something more baffling:

“Denialism”…a relatively recently coined term used to differentiate between professing a conspiracy theory and merely refusing to accept a well-established official explanation…Contemporary denialism, however, is more than just a refusal to believe: it is an active process—what Robert Proctor calls “agnotology” or “the cultural production of ignorance.”…The mistrust of much of the public came to direct at government spilled over to science, especially in the area where the two were intertwined, such as public health.

Additionally, so-called Christian theology incorporated these ideas into a faith transcending empirical reality, providing a contrived “biblical basis for” any chosen issue—from guns, sexual identity, “race mixing,” abortion, the “deep state,” September 11 “trutherism,” COVID, and democracy itself—to create “a sense of righteousness that is hard to imagine” or refute in their minds, because “conspiracism exaggerates the ‘otherness’ of one’s opponents.” In the U.S., conspiracists have taken hold of one of the major political parties and somewhere between 45-50% of the voting population. Those who do not accept conspiracisms are “un-American,” traitorous, and are characterized as vermin, filthfilth, and immigrants and political opponents are “poisoning the blood” of the nation. Comments like this can, does, and will “lead[ ] to violence stems[ing] from its tendency to delegitimize moderate views, again feeding into a dichotomous world-view in which people are either with or against you.”

It is no longer an abstract notion. For example, during the pandemic, when wearing a mask in public places—to protect other people in case one was an asymptomatic carrier of the Covid virus—I, and many like me, were subjected to threatening, hateful stares, palpably verging on violence. And although I live more than a thousand miles from the southern border, many of my neighbors are sure immigrants are most existential problem of our time. While, at the same time, hire undocumented immigrants to clean their houses, replace their roofs, maintain their golf courses, and buy produce harvested by them. They nurture “the idea that violent acts may be necessary to ‘wake up’ the public.” Malcolm Nance’s They Want to Kill Americans describes how politically driven violence has been integral to conspiracist ideologies since the beginning. Once mostly theoretical and rare, historical distortions of the second amendment of the Constitution became legally sanctioned “rights” to stockpile arms, ammunition, and open-carry laws. The traitorous riot on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC can now be seen as something of a test-run for future violence. Traitors are now characterized as “hostages” and “unbelievable patriots”. A member of Congress called them ”normal tourists”. His behavior on that date belied his actual actions at the time. Yet the testimony of police who defended the Capitol continue to be ignored or demeaned by him and his supporters. These events confirm

how much conspiracist depictions of reality can manipulate or badly distort public opinion [and] its capacity to destroy democracy [by creating] a crippled epistemology, in which the information any one person receives is constantly reinforced, contributing to individual intransigence and social polarization.

“Perhaps,” writes Konda, “the most essential prerequisite is the arrogance of narcissism,” which is exacerbated by “[p]erceived persecution” and intellectual—for lack of a better term, I actually mean the opposite—arrogance. It is a kind of narcissism that it only considers what individuals personally experience, extrapolating it to become their universal truths. Issues as varied as election denialism, i.e., “I don’t know anyone who would vote for him/her.” Or the reality of climate change—not knowing the difference between the concepts of weather and climate. Therefore, an occasional, major snowstorm “obviously proves” global warming is a hoax. Both are examples of “severe paranoid fantasies that pop up in the writings and speech of the conspiracists as they took the idea of their enemies’ stopping at nothing to its logical conclusion.” Their inferences are, “if anything, even more extreme and vituperative [and the] increasingly casual use of conspiracy to describe other things is blurring the lines in political analysis,” a concept many news media distill into “both-siderism, which portray conspiracisms as being balancing ideas with facts and objective reality. In the long term, this nurtures and internally legitimizes a collective narcissism throughout the globe to desire and choose authoritarian fictions as political goals.

Growing up in the U.S. in the 60s and 70s, it was common to see copies of National Enquirer (for those who are not American, it was a more irrational “newspaper” than even the Daily Mail, Bild, etc.) at the grocery check-out counter. Most ignored them and laughed at the headlines; I don’t remember every seeing anyone buy one, but they must have been sold. We didn’t worry too much about those who kept rags like this in business. They were very few and very far between. But those who “buy” them today in the form of internet-driven resources can’t be chuckled at or ignored. Because now they impact everyone’s lives. They are voting and dictating public policy, either through actual laws or by gumming up the works to make both the reality and perception of the processes of democratically based governing and politics more frustrating, ineffectual, and even impossible. It is best summed up by a 2002 joke by German Frank-Markus Barwasser, who does comedic commentaries in the character of Erwin Pelzig:

„Ich sag Ihnen einmal eines zum Thema Internet, ja. Noch niemals zuvor in der Menschheits Geschichte, konnten so viele Idioten, so viel Unsinn, so schnell, so weit verbreiten! [lachen und klatschen] Ja, gut. Des iss jetzt nett neu. Ja. Weil Idioten hat’s schon immer gegeben in der Menschheits Geschichte, ja. Aber…die wussten nix voneinander! Heute können die sich sofort kennenlernen. Ja! www.globallevolldepp.de, oder noch schlimmer, www.terror.com!”

(“I’ll say one thing about the subject of the internet, ok? Never before in the history of mankind could so many idiots spread so much nonsense so quickly and so widely! [laughing and applause] OK, this is nothing new. There’ve always been idiots in the history of mankind. But…they didn’t know about each other! Today they can meet each other immediately. Yes! www.globalcompleteidiot.de, or worse, www.terror.com!”)

They do indeed know about each other. I’ve read this book twice in the past two years. In my opinion, it explains the single greatest threat to world stability today—the rapid, widespread acceptance and advocacy of lies and irrationalities that undermine social and political behavior.
For those who believe the ship will right itself because it, so to speak, seemingly always has, Konda’s conclusion isn’t comforting, “the evidence suggests otherwise.” If the cataclysmic effects of conspiracism in the United States take further root in this November’s election, it may well choke the life out of the American Experiment by January 2025. And democratic ideals everywhere.

Final observation to add to the review above: Konda ends with an acknowledgment that underscores what more we might lose: “I would like to thank the University of Chicago Press for being the type of institution that still accepts tangible mail and that is willing to take a chance on an essentially random retired professor with a plausible manuscript.” This statement is an example, in my view, of what happens when citizens take their responsibilities seriously and that the most wisdom can come from the unlikeliest of persons and places. It is another relevant example of what we will lose if the United States drifts into a “kinder, gentler” form—to its cult, that is—of American fascism. History like this will be marginalized and suppressed if the country experiences its form of Gleichschaltung in the foreseeable future. But then again, people who think my fears are overblown probably consider me to be to a conspiracist.

[David Wineberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two conspiracists walk into a bar …. Do you really believe that was just a coincidence???
(Sorry. Couldn’t resist.)

In reading Conspiracies of Conspiracies, you need a laugh up front because the content of the book is so discouraging. There are thousands of conspiracies circulating, and each has its adherents. The United States is positively awash with crackpot theories, and thanks to social media, their proponents are out there pounding the cyber streets for more believers. It has become a part of daily life. The president has made them legitimate.

Author Thomas Konda has assembled hundreds of pages of conspiracists and their theories, shown where their ideas came from and how they fit into the conspiracy world. It’s intimidating just to think how he divided and analyzed the mountain of nonsense that has been growing in number, importance, and legitimacy since the founding of the country. Konda is engaging and thorough, as well as worrisome and depressing.

There are basically two kinds of conspiracy theory. One is based on White Anglo Saxon Protestants (WASPs) under attack for their very lives, and one where theorists deny anything, from their own lying eyes to theoretical science. Both kinds can be linked to violence and both require absolute faith.

William Potter Gale was emblematic of the first kind. He claimed that communism was Satan’s form of government, and that it was being imposed on Israel as their government. Worse, that communists believe that the created are above the creator, and that those who believe the US federal government is above the states that created it have accepted Satan’s communistic philosophy. And therefore, Jews must be stopped.

A lot of WASP fear has to do with the Aryan race, which does not and has never existed. Aryan, Konda points out, is a fictitious term made up by 19th century linguists, who needed to invent a people that spoke the theoretical Aryan language – the precursor of western romance languages. It was just a construct, a placeholder. Nonetheless, it was quickly turned into a race of pure white Christian people, so far superior to anyone else that everyone should aspire to it today. And protect and defend it, with guns as necessary.

Americans saw conspiracies when the country left the silver standard and moved to gold. They claimed it played right into the hands of international (Jewish) bankers, who would then own the country. Later, when America left the gold standard, the blame went to the Federal Reserve, which appeared in 1913, and which was/is run by those same bankers for their own profit. There are numerous conspiracies surrounding the Fed and how it will leave Americans with worthless fiat dollars.

And the Illuminati, the Masons, Jews, blacks, immigrants in general, Catholics, one-world, the UN, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Deep State and the Hidden Hand. Conspiracists can be against democracy itself on the basis that it is run by Jews, compared to say Stalin, who was straightforward, above board, and busy wiping them out (despite being married to one). Meanwhile, Karl Marx was accused of being run by the Illuminati. The inconsistencies are staggering, and matter not at all to the conspiracists.

One of the many successful tools to promulgate conspiracies is simple age. Citing older, long forgotten conspiracy tracts gives current theories credibility. Konda cites Glenn Beck as one who got great mileage out of reviving old conspiracy theories from the 30s to the 60s.

This works for a number of very good reasons. The original author is no longer around to dispute the new slant. The original documents s/he employed have long disappeared, so no verification is possible (if it ever was). And there is no one to vouch for or against the veracity of the theory as newly reminted. So Glenn Beck (et al.) must therefore be right. Neat.

Having read these 300+ pages of attacks, vituperations and outlandish paranoia, I can point to several commonalities underlying most of the first type of conspiracy theory:
-The attacks are always against the Right
-Time is always running out
-The attackers are always non WASPs
-The attacks nibble away at White Supremacy

It seems that American White Anglo Saxon Protestants are naïve, gullible, susceptible, brainwashable weak fools who need constant protection from the entire rest of the world, which is always on the cusp of enslaving them, without their knowledge. Conspiracists are forever yelling at them to wake up before it’s too late, and to defend their God-given advantages with their lives.

With advances in culture – film, tv, cable – conspiracies branched out into simple denialism. Denialism reaches far back – the Holocaust, creationists, flat earthers – but modern denialists focus on current events. Think, 9/11, JFK, and even FDR, who was killed because he wasn’t moving fast enough for his communist handlers. They say.

Or try this one from one of the most prominent conspiracists of the 20th century, Agnes Waters. In the 1930s, she said: “There are 200,000 communist Jews at the Mexican border, waiting to get into this country. If they are admitted , they will rape every woman and child left unprotected.”

As insane as it all appears, there is more – attacks on science itself. Conspiracists are against not just MMR vaccines, but some are actually still against being inoculated against polio. Climate change is a “dingbat hoax so broadly implanted even the pope talks about it” as if it were real.

AIDS, the moon landing – anything science comes up with is subject to denial by conspiracists. There are even conspiracists who deny Einstein’s theory of relativity. The saving grace of the denials is that they are not (necessarily) Jewish, communist or black. This, in conspiracy terms, is progress.

And yet, through all the conspiracies to take over the world by religion, pseudo-science, spiritualism, political cabals, deep states and sheer force, the world trundles on as usual.

If it wasn’t so serious, it would be funny.

David Wineberg

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Open any social media platform and you can slam into a conspiracy theory in a matter of clicks. These often asinine views have been stretched and further distorted in an attempt at legitimization— forum posts become memes become tweets become … well, information sharing goes on and on. However, though digital distribution is relatively new, there’s absolutely nothing new about the theories themselves, as Professor Thomas Milan Konda thoroughly explores.

The research presented is more than thorough. Konda explores the rise of the illogical, tracing conspiracy theories at least to the origins of Freemasonry, its high visibility playing into the idea of something nefarious hiding in plain sight. However, they were hardly the last group to be targeted, and Konda convincingly concludes that consparcism is really the “belief-system” of today. Look no further than false political memes regularly shared or climate change deniers masquerading as television pundits.

Konda’s prose does trend academic, but this is refreshing when paired with over-the-top noise of conspiracy theories. It’s logic and reason versus unbelievable schemes, the clinical versus the flashy. Konda keeps his points grounded, and the result is a slow yet interesting approach that doesn’t take the bait of some of the more extreme propositions.

This careful approach also allows Konda to explore some incredibly serious topics with tact. A lot of the conspiracies examined here stem from an anti-Semitic or xenophobic viewpoint. Konda squashes this hateful rhetoric quickly without giving it any legitimacy. However, he also expresses the seriousness of these ideas gaining more mainstream traction.

It’s frustrating, fascinating, and intensely informative.

Note: I received a free ARC of this book through NetGalley.

[Marcia · Rating 2 out of 5]

A bit too scholarly approach for me. I enjoy an interesting nonfiction title, but this one read more like a text book.

[Olaf Koopmans · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting dive into to paranoia psyche of American society through the ages. Unfortunately Konda does this foremost by giving a complete resumé of all the nonsense that Conspirators came up with, without giving to much of an explanation to why this is so peciular for the American way of thinking.

Thus he opens the floodgates of delusional thinking of all these nutcases and mental instable people , which you as a reader have to consume, in an effort to give a broad perspective on these strange and fearfull minds.
And although it's in someways a good idea to know you're enemies, in the end it all gets a bit to much. Reading page after page, chapter after chapter about all the specific ideas these nutcases came up with. It also becomes a bit of a drag, because through time the subjects and people that are targeted by Conspiracy theories don't change that much. Jews are first and foremost, followed of course by Illuminati, Free Masons, Darwinist, socialist, communist and all organization that have a tendecy towards a collective well being of society. And then of course the Federal goverment themselves, out there to crush the individual and his freedom. Followed after WWII also by all international organizations from the UN to NATO, which were only created to overrule the way Americans want to run their own country.

All in all, this is more an overview of Conspiracism in America, then a deep analyses where it generates. More 'what' and 'how', but very little 'why'
What it shows most of all, is that the Breitbart, Alex Jones' Infowars and Fox take-over of the US mind, highlighted in the presidency of Donald Trump, his claim of stolen elections and the failed attempt to win it back by force, was not an accident. It was an ongoing acummulation of centuries of fear, paranoia and distrust, driving big parts of the American public into the arms of lunatics.
These kind of delusional conspiracy theories were always there, the internet on the one hand and the downfall of white men's supremacy on the other hand probably just speeded up the proces of making them more mainstream today.

[H. Jr. · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this incisive and highly engaging work, Konda (SUNY-Plattsburgh) analyzes the development of conspiracy theories from the origins of the American republic to contemporary movements. Written with a clarity of expression often uncommon in academic writing, the book is accessible to a wide readership. While acknowledging the persistence of conspiracy theories, the author concentrates on conspiracism, or the “mental framework, a belief system, a worldview that leads people to look for conspiracies, to anticipate them, to link them together into a grander overarching conspiracy” (p. 2). Much attention is devoted to defining the meaning of conspiracy theories in an effort to advance scholarly and popular knowledge of the subject (chapter one). The majority of the book is devoted to a critique of various conspiracy theories and the movements that have arisen as the result of these theories. While the author offers valuable insight on all major movements, the trajectory of the book concentrates on “right wing” movements, an approach that deserves scrutiny, as well as the questionable treatment of some vital religious movements cited in the book, especially American Pentecostalism (p. 55). Assessments of the “new dynamics” of conspiracy theories (chapter sixteen) in American politics today is a significant contribution.

[J Earl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Conspiracies of Conspiracies by Thomas Milan Konda is a very well researched eye-opening work of intellectual history, though in this case perhaps intellectual is a misnomer. It certainly explores the ways in which conspiracy theories have influenced history, particularly United States history, and in doing so highlights our collective tendency, here taken to the extreme, of making patterns fit what we believe rather than what they actually mean.

While there is a lot to recommend about this volume I will comment about what it did for me. Perhaps this will give some idea what you can also get out of it. We are all aware of the many conspiracy theories floating around today. They become so numerous and amorphous that they either lose all definition (for those of us not convinced of them) or become congealed into one big conspiracy with little tentacles going every where (for those more likely to believe them). This volume broke down both the history of the theories, since many have common origins, or at least common faux-origin stories, and the places where they overlap and contradict each other. For me, this made them easier to grasp and thus easier to confront. The believers who have completely gone over won't be swayed by any counter arguments, this is their religion, but those who are troubled by society and might see some part of some conspiracy as a possible explanation is still within the realm of rational thought and can be talked down from the edge. Knowing these theories helps arm us in our battle against irrational fear driving irrational conspiracy theories.

That said, it is also valuable as simply a work of history and as a background to our current world where so-called world leaders fan the flames of conspiracy theories for personal gain to the detriment of the countries they might supposedly be leading.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

[Mannie Liscum · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thomas Milan Konda’s “Conspiracies of Conspiracies” is a solid piece of research and presentation. Something that should be read by concerned citizens of the United States. It will make you question not only how others can hold conspiratorial beliefs, but make one reflect on one’s own beliefs vis a vis conspiracy potential. 4.5 stars.

[Greg Chatham · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is one of those cases where there's too much breadth and not enough depth. While the author's purpose is to explain long-lasting conspiracy theories, the fervor of their adherents, and their history in American politics, the book is essentially a compendium of citations. Conspiratorial writers and historical movements are introduced out of order and without context before immediately moving on to the next quote.

It's quite possible the ARC format I read it in doesn't do the book any favors. The layout was a mess and footnotes weren't enabled. But after getting lost halfway through, I went back and reread the first half of the book again with the same result. A lot of names and dates listed, but I had very little understanding of how they connected. And as is usual with non-fiction books dealing with sociology, the back half of the book detailing more recent events was noticeably glib.

Disorganized and extremely dry, this book dutifully catalogs a ton of research, but barely explains any of it. I was left with a list of terms and publications to look up on elsewhere, rather than feeling I had learned something.

(This book is discussed in more detail on our book review podcast, Midnight Skull Sessions episode 112.)

[Carianne Carleo-Evangelist · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you, NetGalley, for a copy of this book. All reviews are my own.

Critical thinking is really a lost art. Social media takes a lot of the blame for the never-ending urban legends, conspiracy theories and other nonsense that spreads like wildfire across the internet, but the lack of critical thinking plays a significant role as role when people treat nonsense as fact without exploring the basis of the rumors. While conspiracy theories around Sandy Hook, 9/11 and other recent stories have exploded, the theories themselves are as old as history. This book explores the roots and basis of various theories throughout time and how they've evolved. Well researched, very readable.

[patrick Lorelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-written book that takes a look at some of the conspiracies of how they came about and how they can affect people. I think the author was trying to show that conspiracies have been around for ages, which they have changed over the years, some have not. Some people still have issues with the Federal Reserve I don’t know if that is a conspiracy or not, just as people believe in aliens hidden below area 51. Over the course of time, these get to be believed whether it is by a former worker or government employee and then that person ends up injured and then it is on with the next phase of conspiracy. Each one has its origin and the author tries to do his best in showing how long it has been around or just how some are silly, he does not say that I do. As a child people kept saying that death camps and the holocaust did not happen and yet my father a grunt was there and say one of the camps told me about it and had no reason to lie because he was a kid from an orphanage that joined the Army. This author does a good job of breaking down the conspiracy and the reason behind them, overall a good book. I received this book from Netgalley.com I gave it 4 stars. Follow us at www.1rad-readerreviews.com

[Jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book should be more popular. It is a history of conspiracies. Most of the book details one conspiracy after another. We are able to see similarities and draw lines between many of them. I would highly recommend this to everyone, particularly right-wingers prone to conspiracies, and of course everyone who supports Trump.

There are very common themes that run through so many conspiracies. Anti-Semitism is perhaps the largest theme, at least as detailed in this book. I wish he would have gone a little deeper on the psychology of those susceptible to such beliefs, which I find really interesting. I think general fear is a big characteristic of those susceptible. It has to be hard to read a book like this and still buy in to conspiracies, so recommend it to those who need it! Many of the conspiracies still around are not new, and indeed probably most conspiracies have a similar mechanism underlying them, at least in the US, that being either the destruction of the white race or that secret cabals of powerful people are controlling things (these being the "they" that people refer to when they say that "they" are secretly doing things - always ask who people mean when they say "they"). 4.5 stars.

[John Boronow · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an important book. With impeccable scholarship and a remarkably restrained objectivity about outlandish notions, Konda covers the history of conspiracism in full detail from its origins at the time of the French Revolution to its current efflorescence in American political life. There is a wealth of fully documented material for any further research to build upon. For someone new to the subject, and wanting only a superficial overview, it may prove to be a challenging read; the material is not presented in bite sized digestible sections with clarifying headers and chapter summaries. However, the complete work repays serious reading and study, providing in depth insight into the origins, development and current extent of this contagion. The reliance on social psychology is restrained, but adequate, and he leaves it to others to speculate on the further evolution of this phenomenon in American society. It is not a political science research project using Big Data to present a quantitative and operational picture of the current workings of this kind of social behavior. Rather, it is more historical, descriptive and analytical. Anyone with those kinds of interests will find this book an outstanding contribution to the burgeoning literature on this very disturbing trend.

[Pierre · Rating 3 out of 5]

Konda does a hell of a job cataloguing a seemingly endless number of conspiracy theories, most of which with incredibly anti-semitic/racist origins. There are anywhere from 50 to 70 sources per chapter, so the book is certainly well-researched. But it does seem, at times, like Konda jumps from one conspiracy to another without providing much commentary/context. Luckily I've been interested in conspiracy theories for some time and spend more time on social media than is probably healthy, so I came prepared with some basic knowledge/insight on a lot of the stuff Konda covers. Nevertheless, a great jumping-off point for anyone interested in learning about the history of conspiracy theories/conspiracism in the US. There's a wealth of great sources and important topics in this book's index.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Encyclopedic dive into American conspiracism that goes impressively far back into history. Turns out most of today's conspiracy claims about current events are lifted and repackaged almost verbatim from identical hysterics about the New Deal, the polio vaccine, the Lincoln assassination, etc. It's probably much quicker to list events that HAVEN'T been alleged to be a Jewish-Marxist conspiracy against white Christian America, compared to the endless list of events that have.

There's an impressive breadth of research here, but falls down a bit as it reads like a drive-by safari of conspiracy beliefs without much in the way of meaningful examination. "Lots of breadth, little depth", as one other reviewer put it.

[Sami Eerola · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect book about the history and the psychology behing US conspiracy theories. The amont of information and detail in this book is impressive. Very comprehensible source book and very well written. Read it with great enjoyment.

The only problem in this book is the lack of Qanon, but that could be because in 2019 it was a relatively fringe movement and not a hause hold name that it became during the pandemic and January 6 of 2021

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Less analysis, more history: a careful tracing of the history of conspiracy theories and writings. Pretty dense, academic prose; great footnotes. Careful is the byword here - even more academic than the prose is the cautious approach, and there’s something humbling and serious about how that comes across.

[Tobias · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mostly okay. Too much of it just summarized various conspiracy theories. The chapter on anti-science conspiracies was strong -- and alarming -- but in general I wish there was a) more on what makes conspiracy ideation so appealing and b) why now is different.

[Jeffrey Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yikes!

[Faith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sad, infuriating, telling. Same conspiracies over and over, talk about not studying history.

[Annarella · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very interesting book.
It's well researched, engaging and well written.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC