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Millions of people around the world have convinced themselves that the actual perpetrators of 9/11 were not al-Qaeda terrorists but elements within the U.S. government seeking a pretext to launch wars abroad and enact draconian laws at home. These "9/11 Truthers" are not alone. They are part of a vast conspiracist subculture that is spreading like wildfire and beginning to influence mainstream politics. For two years, Canadian journalist Jonathan Kay has been researching the underground world of conspiracy theorists by immersing himself in their ranks. He has attended their conventions, infiltrated their Internet discussion boards, become a connoisseur of their propaganda videos, and engaged them in in-depth, revealing interviews. While many individual conspiracy theories seem harmless, even amusing, the phenomenon is doing real damage to the unity and health of North American society.
Since the JFK assassination, conspiracy thinking has proliferated, and the Internet has fostered the growth of numerous alternate conceptual worlds in which traditional media and academia have no authority. 9/11 was a death blow to the older consensual view of reality, and as a result, North Americans no longer inhabit one cognitive universe. What this means for the future of politics, and for our society at large, is at the heart of Among the Truthers.
About the Author
JONATHAN KAY is a managing editor of Canada's National Post newspaper, a weekly columnist on the newspaper's op-ed page and a regular blogger on the Post's website. In addition, he is a frequent contributor to Commentary Magazine, the New York Post and Reader's Digest. His freelance articles have appeared in numerous publications including Harper's Magazine, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek and The New York Times. He has been awarded two National Newspaper Awards. His first book, The Volunteer, co-authored with Michael Ross, became a Top 10 bestseller in 2007.
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Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Yes, we know your smart,
By
This review is from: Among The Truthers: North America's Growing Conspiracist Underground (Hardcover)
This book had an interesting premise and presented a lot of interesting information. I had two problems with this book. First, although Jonathan Kay attempts to present an impartial view and uses a lot of quotes to present differing views, his biases still seem to shine through with the wording and sentiments he uses in his narrative sections. Also, he seems to like to use obscure words without any real reason. These two aspects added unnecessary challenges to the read and at certain points I almost gave up on the book.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Against conspiracism,
By
This review is from: Among The Truthers: North America's Growing Conspiracist Underground (Hardcover)
I see that a conspiracist has nailed this book already. Well, I appreciate Kay's efforts to discredit conspiracy in a public way and lessen the tolerance for it. It's important for truth to be defended like this. Kay has some trouble here, since the modern world has lost a true touchstone for what is or isn't truth - which only aids and abets conspiracies.This book is quite well written and exposes a lot of the rot in society's thought processes these days. There's an unfortunate chapter close to the end which is more an opinion column about Israel than a talk about leftist anti-semitism, which is what it claims to be. Besides that, this book is well-written - it particularly exposes academia's contribution to the problem. Some conspiracies have support in the hallowed minds of tenured professors. Jonathan Kay writes from a Canadian right-wing perspective, which will feel unfamiliar to most at times. Definitely worth a read.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Kudos to Kay,
By
This review is from: Among The Truthers: North America's Growing Conspiracist Underground (Hardcover)
As previous reviews have pointed out, Among the Truthers is not a perfect book in that it occasionally loses focus or gets side-tracked on one of the author's pet themes. It may also be overambitious in attempting to bring so many disparate conspiracy theories, and other assaults on truth and reason, under a single umbrella.However, the book deserves high praise for its rationality, intellectual honesty, and far-ranging scholarship. Kudos to Kay for his courage in tackling the troubling subject of conspiracism in the computer age, for his keen insight into its dogmas and methodology, and for his recognition of the threat that focusing on the trees instead of the forest poses to the intellectual underpinnings of Western Civilization. Conspiracism is the polar opposite of the scientific method, in that its practitioners settle on their beliefs or arrive at their conclusions first, and then go searching for proof of what they already hold to be true. As Kay points out, the evidence they gather usually consists of nothing more than shards of information that cannot be readily squared with the obvious, or official, interpretation of a given event. However, each of the carefully-harvested tidbits nevertheless gets enshrined in a litany of reasons why the accepted version of the event is a "Big Lie." Tirades about Kay's political orientation, former newspaper columns, views on Israel, and the like, are befogging techniques employed by conspiracists, but such information casts little or no light on the work itself, which deserves to be evaluated on its own merits.
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