2 stars
Disappointing. The author had a few good points, "Jews control the World" type conspiracies lead to the possibility for Hitler to be able to take over in Germany, and "There's a secret Communist Conspiracy to rule the world" lead to the Red Scare of McCarthyism, lead by a politician who likely would have lost at the polls due to he being a do nothing, worth nothing, who was in the wrong political party after Wisconsin had a shift left. returnreturnHowever, most of the book wasn't actually about history but about how Aaronovitch thinks conspiracies are dumb, because its too far from Occam's razor. He would ridicule conspiracy theorists for believing in ideas that had "facts" to back it up, but nothing verifiable, and then do the same thing himself in his short attempt to debunk it. Rarely actually examining any of the true "facts" the conspiracists claimed to rely on. …
Disappointing. The author had a few good points, "Jews control the World" type conspiracies lead to the possibility for Hitler to be able to take over in Germany, and "There's a secret Communist Conspiracy to rule the world" lead to the Red Scare of McCarthyism, lead by a politician who likely would have lost at the polls due to he being a do nothing, worth nothing, who was in the wrong political party after Wisconsin had a shift left. returnreturnHowever, most of the book wasn't actually about history but about how Aaronovitch thinks conspiracies are dumb, because its too far from Occam's razor. He would ridicule conspiracy theorists for believing in ideas that had "facts" to back it up, but nothing verifiable, and then do the same thing himself in his short attempt to debunk it. Rarely actually examining any of the true "facts" the conspiracists claimed to rely on. returnHe tried to run through the book in a history (over the last 150 years) of various conspiracies, and as he had a British perspective the point of reference was off for me. I wanted to put the book down far before I did but I kept hoping he'd get to a point and it would make sense. For the most part it was in linear order, with the exception of 9/11. He covered this in the 8th chapter of a 9 chapter book, and in the 9th went backwards to Bill Clinton. I suspect that his editor that as I did, that many folks would be bored by the 8th chapter and have become interested in conspiracys after exporse of the "9/11 Truth" movement. I also found it odd that on that subject he cited poor excuses for "Truth" like the Scholors for 9/11 Truth, including a reference to having "only one engineer" instead of looking at the far more popular AE911 (architects and engineers for 9/11 Truth, of which I signed on as a member at one time, FYI, I'm an engineer). Now, I am not going to claim, as others may, that Aaronovitch is part of a conspiracy to make conspiracy theorists look wack-o (I assure you they do that well enough on their own). In the epilogue there were a few other good insights about conspiracies being a deeper issue. The poem of the soul, showing a deeper truth about a real issue that bothers people and they feel the need for an explanation. Like my review of "Why does a nice guy like me keep getting thrown in Jail?" lead me to add one of his references "The Nazi Persecution of the churches" by Conway to my book queue as likely closer to what I was wanting, similarly the epilogue to this lead me to add "Conspiracy Theories" by Ramsay for a look a look at the idea form a broader perspective. I try that later, in the mean time if you are looking for an objective view on something of this subject I recommend "Them" by Ronson as an alternative.