Colin Dickey

Many books dissecting conspiracy theories spend a lot of time on Europe, but Dickey keeps his focus on the United States, digging out examples of conspiratorial thinking that have been present in the US (amongst European colonists and immigrants) since before the revolution.

Along the way, we get insights into the way attitudes about freemasons changed over time from seeing them as noble benefactors (back) to dark conspirators.

He also addressed the long history of anti-Catholicism in the US, brought over from England originally, but recurring over and over.

In fact, recurrence is maybe Dickey's key point: the same sorts of conspiratorial thinking come up again and again, with slight adjustments to their particular manifestations, targets, and secret manipulators. (Although, let's face it, they always—always—come back to blaming Jews.)

I've read a lot of books about conspiracies and their workings and history, but I learned a bunch of new things about US history and US-specific conspiracies that I hadn't encountered before. (As usual, of course, learning new things about US history pretty much always equates to learning new _bad_ things about US history.)… (altro)