The United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory
By Jesse Walker
4/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
Jesse Walker’s The United States of Paranoia presents a comprehensive history of conspiracy theories in American culture and politics, from the colonial era to the War on Terror.
The fear of intrigue and subversion doesn’t exist only on the fringes of society, but has always been part of our national identity. When such tales takes hold, Walker argues, they reflect the anxieties and experiences of the people who believe them, even if they say nothing true about the objects of the theories themselves.
With intensive research and a deadpan sense of humor, Jesse Walker’s The United States of Paranoia combines the rigor of real history with the punch of pulp fiction.
This edition includes primary-source documentation in the form of archival photographs, cartoons, and film stills selected by the author.
Jesse Walker
Jesse Walker is the books editor of Reason magazine and the author of Rebels on the Air: An Alternative History of Radio in America. He lives in Baltimore with his wife and their two daughters.
Read more from Jesse Walker
The United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDeep Black Elements Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to The United States of Paranoia
Related ebooks
Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Far-Right Vanguard: The Radical Roots of Modern Conservatism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTonight We Bombed the U.S. Capitol: The Explosive Story of M19, America's First Female Terrorist Group Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Poisoning the Press: Richard Nixon, Jack Anderson, and the Rise of Washington's Scandal Culture Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nixon's War at Home: The FBI, Leftist Guerrillas, and the Origins of Counterterrorism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Operation Chaos: The Vietnam Deserters Who Fought the CIA, the Brainwashers, and Themselves Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jackals: The Stench of Fascism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Slim's Table: Race, Respectability, and Masculinity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The World of the John Birch Society: Conspiracy, Conservatism, and the Cold War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnited States of Distraction: Media Manipulation in Post-Truth America (And What We Can Do About It) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Run the Other Way: Fixing the Two-Party System, One Campaign at a Time Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Who Will Tell The People: The Betrayal Of American Democracy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Empire of Conspiracy: The Culture of Paranoia in Postwar America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Panic: A History of Who Scares Us and Why Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Subversives: The FBI's War on Student Radicals, and Reagan's Rise to Power Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Profits of Doom: How vulture capitalism is swallowing the world Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Strength of the Wolf: The Secret History of America's War on Drugs Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Poverty Knowledge: Social Science, Social Policy, and the Poor in Twentieth-Century U.S. History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Moment of Clarity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsConspiracy: How the Paranoid Style Flourishes and Where It Comes From Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Reconstructing Appalachia: The Civil War's Aftermath Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All-American Nativism: How the Bipartisan War on Immigrants Explains Politics as We Know It Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Social Science For You
My Secret Garden: Women's Sexual Fantasies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All About Love: New Visions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Come As You Are: Revised and Updated: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Witty Banter: Be Clever, Quick, & Magnetic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Reset: And the War for the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Like Switch: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Influencing, Attracting, and Winning People Over Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A People's History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fervent: A Woman's Battle Plan to Serious, Specific, and Strategic Prayer Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Body Is Not an Apology, Second Edition: The Power of Radical Self-Love Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Denial of Death Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Mercy: a story of justice and redemption Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Human Condition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row (Oprah's Book Club Selection) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The January 6th Report Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The United States of Paranoia
7 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Far from perfect, especially in his underestimation of white militia group. But nonetheless a fascinating collection of American conspiracy group ideology and culture from the late 20th century . Four stars for his remarkable analysis on 90s fusion paranoia and for the Richard Keel bio.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'm more familiar with climate change denial than with American paranoia, though the types seem similar. I'm not convinced that this kind of book pointing out the logical flaws really helps. The logical flaws are obvious; has any climate denier ever changed their mind when they discover that all climate scientists already know that the climate has always changed? The most useful advice here - and I think the only thing that might actually work - is to keep dialogue open by not making them feel attacked. Like Trump, they feed off a sense of oppression. Highlighting facts that show they're wrong will just make them more determined. Theoretically, showing they're being played for suckers should be the exception to that. But climate 'sceptics' don't seem to mind if the papers they cite about a global conspiracy are funded by fossil fuel interests.So you have to act as if you really might be interested in what they say. 'That's interesting; I hadn't heard of that. So what does Gates get out of it? Wow! How do you know that? What makes them think that?...' I suspect real skepticism might be the stake through the heart of fake skepticism. The trouble is that it's almost impossible to do, because the arguments are so maddeningly stupid.What about the questions: “Why engage at all? If people want to believe stupid things, let them. Nobody has been given a mission to correct every dumb idea in the world. So it makes little sense to try. Apart from anything else, why put the fake-believers through the humiliation. Don't they deserve some basic human respect too (no matter how stupid their notions)? If someone wants to believe the earth is flat, there is an invisible weightless cold-fire breathing dragon - or anything else, then let them. Provided they don't act on their beliefs to the detriment of others (so this excludes anti-vaxxers with kids) then it is nobody else's business.” Easy to answer: People who believe the earth is flat ultimately do no harm. People who believe COVID caused by 5G and then burn down towers or fail to get vaccinated and prolong its spread killing more people so cause harm to others primarily. That is why they need addressing. Of course, calling them a fuckwit and moving on is not really constructive, but it is satisfying.Recently had a woman in my blog on one of my posts who asked if I believed the virus was real, her scepticism heightened by the fact that neither she nor anyone she knew had caught the virus. I asked her how many people she knew were airline pilots. She looked puzzled, and said none. I asked her if that meant she doubted the existence of airline pilots. She said no. She then said she "had heard" that the vaccine would be used to inject computer chips into people. I asked her how chips work. She didn't know. I suggested they were designed to work in computers, and be plugged into them so they can run their programmes. I suggested this might work in her, if she was a machine, a robot. I asked her how a chip might work in a flesh and blood human, rather than a robot. She couldn't say. I then said that even if a microscopic chip could be injected, how will it be plugged into a microscopic port within - one assumes - her brain? Was there also a microscopic IT geek inside her, waiting to plug the chip in? By this stage she had gone quiet. Had I convinced her of the insanity of believing such nonsense? Maybe not.Her thoughts as she went quite: "I knew it, this guy is part of the conspiracy, he is trying to get into my brain and manipulate it.... I better end this conversation, it could be truly dangerous".... etc., etc.You can't eliminate them from the face of Earth.... you can only keep them into a minority, just as Trump has learned at the recent USA presidential election.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Compelling evidence that Roger Ailes's propaganda machine would have thrived in the 19th century and earlier. Well, that's no real surprise: most of his audience are post-Enlightenment New Dark Ages throwbacks anyway.
Walker puts together a nice compendium of how the nut case conspiracy theorists of the truther and birther wackos are not unique to the 21st century. The United States has always had its pet fringe beliefs...except that they're less fringe and a lot more mainstream than folks care to admit.
Four stars because Walker spent a whole chapter on my favorite lunatic, Robert Anton Wilson. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Roger Ailes is the master of exploiting the fears above, below, outside and inside through Fox News.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An excellent examination of the lifecycle and evolution of conspiracies--real or imagined--throughout United States history. It illustrates how our paranoias and favorite conspiracies often say much more about ourselves than we realize.