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

Product Information

An early example was Freemasonry, the leading fraternal organisation of the 18th century with members including George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, James Otis and Paul Revere. What began as a teacher of moral, intellectual and spiritual values came to be regarded with hostility and suspicion. Disclosure: Gawker has tried to get more than one of my friends fired, so I didn’t shed any tears when justice was served. High-fives may have been exchanged. This is his first bit of journalism. He does a good job investigating and telling the story about a real, honest to goodness conspiracy. While there certainly was intrigue, I did find the pace slower than I expected, especially with Ryan Holiday re-iterating multiple times the ideas around conspiracies and what happens when people feel wronged/vengeful, rather than focusing on the details of the story. I doubt I'd have bothered with this book if it didn't have "Ryan Holiday" on the cover. I mean, can the story of Hulk Hogan suing Gawker really be that interesting? Who is the target audience - the intersection of "people who are fans of Hulk Hogan" and "people who know how to read"? But Holiday said it was his favourite thing he'd ever written, so I gave it a chance... and the response is a resounding "meh".

One question people asked a lot in the aftermath of Gawker's shutdown was: do we want to live in a society where a vindictive billionaire can spend years and tens of millions of dollars to ruin someone’s life? A better question is: do we want to live in a society where a blogger can spend fifteen minutes to do the same thing? But the most interesting of all the literary retorts to the Warren report is Norman Mailer’s Oswald’s Tale: An American Mystery (1995), which used KGB material released in post-Soviet Russia to illuminate the formative period that Kennedy’s presumed assassin spent in the USSR as a young man. However, despite this period deepening the mystery of Oswald’s motives, the generally anarchistic Mailer eventually concludes: “Every insight we have gained of him suggests the solitary nature of his act.” Mailer’s sly comparison of the assassination with masturbation underlines his theory that the killer was driven by narcissistic egotism, rather than an external commission. It is a real blend and synthesis of a bunch of different things that all appeal to slightly different personalities. It’s spread a little wider because it’s able to bring in people who might be otherwise disparate and unconnected and yokes them all under this banner by being vague and nebulous and not attached to too many specific beliefs or practices.”I’ve long been a fan of Ryan Holiday, so take that for what it’s worth, but I believe this to be yet another book that seeks to enlighten and educate. What does seem new is that QAnon is this weird hybrid of a very dangerous, quite racist and homo- and transphobic conspiracy theory mixed with an online multilevel marketing scheme and also a community forum for puzzle solvers,” he says. He says: “Almost any conspiracy theory starts with a legitimate question that I would agree: yeah, let’s look into that, let’s see what we can find. It’s the refusal to accept evidence when the evidence doesn’t pan out in the way that you want it to that leads to problems because then what you have to do is construct an increasingly elaborate conspiratorial framework to explain why you’re not finding the evidence you were hoping for. That’s where you get completely lost in the weeds.” The book's narrative does take an interesting turn into politics and aims to inspire people to take action during those times when they want to but feel they can do nothing about a certain situation — however, it fell short for me in being wholly inspiring.

Don DeLillo, after extensive reading of the 26 supporting volumes to the Warren report, presented Oswald in his 1988 novel, Libra, as the stooge of a CIA attempt to promote war with Cuba. James Ellroy’s American Tabloid(1995) begins with Castro’s coup and ends with the Dallas assassination, which the novel attributes to a conspiracy involving the Cuban interests of the CIA and the mafia. Anna Gooding-Call is a librarian and writer originally from rural central New York. She got her BA in the city that inspired "The Twilight Zone" and confirms that the hitchhikers really are weird there. Today, she lives in Massachusetts with her wife and two cats.That said, I came away quite unconvinced by Holiday's thesis about conspiracies and nowhere near as sympathetic towards Thiel as he is. As one online reviewer astutely pointed out, the tenuous connection to Gamergate is extremely troubling, and Holiday missed (or deliberately ignored) the chance to probe deeper into this. My enemy's enemy is my friend, Holiday alludes elsewhere in the book, yet when it comes to Gamergate he steers clear of any investigation as to whether Thiel or the mysterious Mr. A. supported or colluded in any way with this terrible movement. If true, it would be extremely troubling - and have now disturbing implications as well for Thiel's subsequent support of Trump.

The importance of gold and how it was to be secretly accumulated as it was the only true store of value This book got my attention while strolling through a book shop since I, supposedly like so many, have had some long-lasting relationships put severely to the test due to people close to me going down the rabbit hole during the very demanding years of Corona. More than one tear has been shed in our house due to the unshakeable feeling that some friends had entered some kind of cult, or were at least displaying cult-like thinking. Most publications have been sceptical of this finding. On the Trail of the Assassins by Jim Garrison (1988), a Louisiana lawyer, and L Fletcher Prouty’s JFK: The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F Kennedy (1992), featured key source material for Oliver Stone’s movie JFK(1991), which suggested that the president was executed by a vast cabal of businessmen, gangsters, politicians, soldiers, Cuban dissidents and spooks. Some podcasts and articles have given me some insights, but this book definitely serves that purpose as well. In all, it's both scary and oddly calming to come to the well-researched realization that this 'golden age of the conspiracy theory' is neither the first nor the last time humanity finds itself in one. Propaganda by Edward Bernays is the oldest conspiracy book on the list, originally written in 1928. The book outlines the psychology of manipulating the masses through the technique of public communication. Bernays is viewed by many media historians as the father of public relations. Noam Chomsky stated that:

I went into this book with high hopes, and I am happy to say I wasn’t disappointed. This is one of those rare books that make me want to learn more even if the idea of falling down the conspiracy rabbit hole is terrifying.

You see that with 9/11 conspiracy theories and you see it with the JFK assassination. The idea that the head of state was assassinated and yet, for a large part of the population, the only explanation was that the government itself in some form or another was responsible for this is representative of that sea change.” Bernays honest and practical manual provides much insight into some of the most powerful and influential institutions of contemporary industrial state capitalist democracies.” I've enjoyed other books by Ryan Holiday. I enjoy his stoic approach to things. He's a fascinating young man with an interesting, if not worldly, misguided insight into how things work. There is a wide variety of alternative history conspiracy books to choose from; however, these seven are a little more robust in terms of reliability and evidence. It is arguably worthwhile reading an alternative view of history and then making up your own mind, instead of just accepting the official version as fact. There is much evidence that, at least in some cases, official versions of events are not as they seem. And authors such as Bernays, Fuller and Epperson give a good reason as to why this is the case.

The Best Conspiracy Books

Boris Johnson campaigning for the Tory leadership in 2019, with Nadine Dorries and Liz Truss. Photograph: Joe Giddens/PA The problem with this book is at the very end, he suddenly turns it into an opinion piece on his belief that the Trump presidency is a disaster and proves more and more a disaster every day that passes... And speaking of agency: Thiel and Denton are clearly, in the words of Eric Weinstein, "high-agency people." They have a vision and execute on it. That trait is in limited supply, and tends to be selected-against in high-status education and the early stages of high-status jobs. In a sense, Denton was a class traitor, by using his Nietzschean will-to-power to build an institution that mostly swatted other unique people aside.