Conspiracy: How the Paranoid Style Flourishes and Where It Comes From [Paperback]

Pipes says that we should avoid paranoid thinking because it demonizes others that are not to blame and the evidence used against them is faulty. Amusingly, he describes antisemitic theorists who have not even met a Jew.

Pipes most valuable contribution is his history of conspiracy theories, mainly involving Jews and Freemasons at first, and then British and Americans in later times. During the Crusades, antisemitism became more systematic in its hatred and developed conspiracy theories against Jews, in this time of intolerant religious fervor. During the French Revolution, people we're looking for an easy way to explain such a messy and bloody event and began blaming the revolution on the Jews and Freemasons. In more modern times, the world powers of Britain and America were blamed for the world's troubles especially during the Lenin and Stalin regimes which concocted anti-imperialist conspiracy theories. Hitler focused more on antisemitic theories. During this age of totalarianism, paranoid thinking became status quo and murder of "subversives" became commonplace. Pipes also gives an insightful analysis of the characteristics of conspiracy theories.

This is a challenging book for true believers in conspiracy theories and a book that debunkers will enjoy. Perhaps Pipes could have debunked one conspiracy theory directly and this may be a weakness. Also, he does not deal with quotes from society's elites such a Henry Kissinger who says that we will have global government. So maybe Pipes has oversimplified as much as the conspiracy theorists have oversimplified. Yet still, you've heard that many things are too good to be true, maybe many conpiracy theories are too bad to be true.

It's an amazing book. Conspiracy theory is.... well, everywhere. Few great names have been untouched by its allures. We all know that it was behind the Holocaust, but how many of us know to what extent conspiracy theory defined the Soviet regime's genocidal practices as well? Furthermore, conspiracy theory controls politics in many areas of the world to this day.

Reviews on this page point further to the problem of conspiracy theory in our midst. "Wake up people! This author belongs to the Council of Foreign Relations, that is a documented fact." AND "We all realize the existence of people with inordinantly fearful views of the world. These people are called paranoid. When these people obsess on certain topics, the result can be conspiracy theories. Alternatively, sometimes these people actually discover important things that the rest of us have overlooked."

If you want to understand where reviewers like this are coming from, read Pipes' book. Because, if you take nothing else from it, you will discover that conspiracy theories are not harmless. Most real conspiracies began with a conspiracy theory, and the 20th century is bathed in blood as a result.