Conspiracy Theories: The Roots, Themes and Propagation of Paranoid Political and Cultural Narratives

Narratives based on conspiratorial and paranoid thinking have become increasingly prominent throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. From the prosaic to the outlandish, conspiracy theories involve aliens and Nazis, underground bases and mind control technology. They range from sinister tales of malevolent reptilian beings infiltrating our government to fears of the New World Order rounding up patriotic Americans and putting them into internment camps. These stories and their underlying conc...