Conspiracy Theories

In this enlightening tour of conspiracy theories, Mark Fenster guides readers through this shadowy world and analyzes its complex role in American culture and politics. Fenster argues that conspiracy theories are a form of popular political interpretation and contends that recognizing how they circulate through mass culture helps us better understand our society as a whole. To that end, he discusses Richard Hofastader's The Paranoid Style in American Politics, the militia movement, the X-Files, popular Christian apocalypic thought, and such artifacts of suspicion as the Turner Diaries, The Illuminatus! Trilogy, and the novels of Richard Condon.

Fenster analyzes the "conspiracy community" of radio shows, magazine and book publishers, Internet resources, and role-playing games that cultivate these theories. He believes conspiracy theory has become a thrill for a bored subculture, one characterized by its members' reinteerpretation of "accepted" history, their deep cynicism about contemporary politics, and their longing for a utopian future.