Conspiracy theories are not the preserve of the US: Brits are as likely – indeed perhaps marginally more – to believe at least one conspiracy theory than the Americans. This is one of the findings from …
A common feature of some kinds of conspiracy theory is a claim that the ostensible motives of states when they intervene in the affairs of others are in fact not the ‘real’ motives. Thus the assertion that the US and the UK went to war in Iraq not because of genuine fears that the Saddam […]
In 1940s New York, FBI alarm bells are ringing: the Existentialists are coming! J. Edgar Hoover has to know: what the hell is this Existentialism all about anyway – and is it some kind of code for Communism? He sets his agents on the trail of first Jean-Paul Sartre (1945) and then Albert Camus (1946). […]
How can we reconcile the sense that recent conspiracy theories can appear – to put not too fine a point on it – crazy, and clear evidence that they have had a broad, if often transient, appeal? Since 9/11, a succession of conspiracy theories have alleged that major incidents like the Aurora cinema shooting, the […]
Spotted in the media this week by the research team, the following story in The Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/nov/13/philae-comet-lander-alien-cover-up-conspiracy-theories-emerge
This talk explored Mark Twain’s perspective on conspiracy theory in late-nineteenth century America. In Twain’s time, public attitudes towards conspiracy theory went through a somewhat unusual change. Namely, conspiracy theory was becoming increasingly identified with amusement and entertainment. Figures such as Josiah Strong and Ignatius Donnelly drew enormous crowds and sold bestselling books by offering […]
Professor Olmsted’s (Professor and Chair of History at the University of California, Davis) talk examines British and American anticommunist conspiracy theories in the 1920s and 1930s. In both countries, former wartime intelligence agency chiefs set up private intelligence networks in the post-World War I era to spy upon and blacklist radicals — and, not incidentally, […]
Are conspiracy theories overtaking deliberative societies, inflaming discourse and degrading democracy? How much more prone to violence are conspiracy theorists? Which political party is more likely to traffic in conspiratorial talk? Has the Internet ushered in a new era of conspiracy-fueled paranoia? Using original data sources spanning more than a century, Joseph E. Uscinski and […]
Mr Smith’s talk explored how the idea of the mafia and conspiracy emerged in America, developed and became entangled in very different contexts. Mr Smith describes the ideas, experiences, and events through which his book, ‘The Mafia Mystique’ (1975), took shape; the consequences of those events that have led to contemporary public understanding and use […]
Following their visit last term talking about their forthcoming book on American Conspiracy Theories, Joe Parent and Joe Uscinski wrote a piece for the CRASSH blog on the pitfalls and the benefits of collaborative writing. And so saying, we’ve put together a short piece for the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage political science blog, discussing their […]