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The Culture of Conspiracy in Modern America
Yale University Press
November 2001
On Sale: November 8, 2001
368 pages
ISBN: 0300090005
EAN: 9780300090000
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
There is a hunger for conspiracy news in America. Hundreds
of Internet websites, magazines, newsletters, even entire
publishing houses, disseminate information on invisible
enemies and their secret activities, subversions, and
coverups. Those who suspect conspiracies behind events in
the news--the crash of TWA Flight 800, the death of Marilyn
Monroe--join generations of Americans, from the colonial
period to the present day, who have entertained visions of
vast plots. In this enthralling book Robert Goldberg focuses
on five major conspiracy theories of the past half-century,
examining how they became widely popular in the United
States and why they have remained so. In the post–World War
II decades conspiracy theories have become more numerous,
more commonly believed, and more deeply embedded in our
culture, Goldberg contends. He investigates conspiracy
theories regarding the Roswell UFO incident, the Communist
threat, the rise of the Antichrist, the assassination of
President John Kennedy, and the Jewish plot against black
America, in each case taking historical, social, and
political environments into account. Conspiracy theories are
not merely the products of a lunatic fringe, the author
shows. Rather, paranoid rhetoric and thinking are
disturbingly central in America today. With media validation
and dissemination of conspiracy ideas, and federal
government behavior that damages public confidence and
faith, the ground is fertile for conspiracy thinking.
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