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Jesse Walker

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The United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory Kindle Edition

by Jesse Walker (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.4 228 ratings

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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.

Print length

467 pages
Language

English
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On Kindle Scribe
Publisher

Harper
Publication date

Aug. 20 2013
File size

5565 KB
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Product description

From the Back Cover

Conspiracy theories aren’t just a feature of the fringe. They’ve been a potent force across the political spectrum, at the center as well as the extremes, from the colonial era to the present. In The United States of Paranoia, Jesse Walker argues that conspiracy stories should be read not just as claims to be believed or debunked but also as folklore. When a tale takes hold, it reveals something true about the anxieties and experiences of those who believe and repeat it, even if the story says nothing true about the objects of the theory itself.

Stretching from the seventeenth century to today, Walker’s book lays out five conspiracy narratives that recur in American politics and popular culture. With intensive research and a deadpan sense of humor, The United States of Paranoia combines the rigor of real history with the punch of pulp fiction.

--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From the Inside Flap

Conspiracy theories aren't just a feature of the fringe. They've been a potent force across the political spectrum, at the center as well as the extremes, from the colonial era to the present. In The United States of Paranoia, Jesse Walker argues that conspiracy stories should be read not just as claims to be believed or debunked but also as folklore. When a tale takes hold, it reveals something true about the anxieties and experiences of those who believe and repeat it, even if the story says nothing true about the objects of the theory itself.

Stretching from the seventeenth century to today, Walker's book lays out five conspiracy narratives that recur in American politics and popular culture. With intensive research and a deadpan sense of humor, The United States of Paranoia combines the rigor of real history with the punch of pulp fiction.

--Debbie Nathan, author of Sybil Exposed --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00BATIIZY
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harper; Reprint edition (Aug. 20 2013)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 5565 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 467 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #655,834 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #473 in United States 21st Century History (Kindle Store)
- #1,172 in Political History & Theory (Kindle Store)
- #1,564 in 21st Century U.S. History

Customer Reviews:
4.4 228 ratings

About the author

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Jesse Walker

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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.

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gylora

Five Stars

Reviewed in Canada on April 20, 2015

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Une enquête qui démontre l'importance de la paranoina pour assoir le pouvoir.

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Frank Scoblete author of Confessions of a Wayward Catholic

I Conspired with Myself to Like This Book

Reviewed in the United States on April 20, 2015

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I’ve been reading on Facebook a lot from various conspiracy theorists. Some are so far out that I think what they are writing has to be satire or evidence of a serious mental befuddlement.

For example, the Sandy Hook elementary school shootings by Adam Lanza that killed 20 children and six adults --- and also his mother. the woman who helped train this young man(iac) --- is thought to be a conspiracy perpetrated by the whole town. Yes, the police, the parents, the firemen, the local grocery store owner, the media, the teachers, the garbage men, the electricians and the old folks rocking in the nursing home and, add to that, the little kids themselves.

To these conspiracy theorists, Lanza never killed anyone and all the kids are alive and well as is everyone else. In fact, there might not even exist an Adam Lanza.

With that in mind, I purchased "The United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory" by Jesse Walker, an exhaustive study of conspiracy theories going back to the very first Europeans to come to this land --- actually even before the Europeans arrival, the American Indians were damn good at spinning conspiracy yarns too.

Walker takes us through every type of outrageous and even seemingly logical conspiracies, and he shows that many of them in different guises and forms are basically made from several categories: the enemy within, the enemy without, the strong clique manipulating events, even minor daily events in history and in your own little life. The conspiracies can even be a combination of these types.

Now, no one would say there are no conspiracies. Most spies are involved in conspiracies but these spies don’t belong to groups such as the Illuminati or the psychic underground or Aunt Emma’s sewing club. Normandy was a conspiracy after all.

In our own lifetime we have been subjected to the Kennedy Assassination Conspiracy (seems everyone from politicians and the mafia were into that one), the Martin Luther King Conspiracy (some of which blame Jesse Jackson), the Robert Kennedy Conspiracy, the World Trade Center Conspiracy (we bombed ourselves), the War is Good conspiracy that blames Republicans or Democrats for starting us on the path to lucrative wars that make individuals a lot of money supplying weapons or gaining oil rich lands for greedy corporations, rich people and politicians. The list goes on and on.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in clearing the air about the paranoia that travels throughout our history like a hand in a glove, which is probably a conspiracy of glove makers in huge cabals.

Conspiracy theorists might want to read the book to see exactly where on the conspiracy continuum their particular favorites fall.

Frank Scoblete is the author of "I Am a Dice Controller: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Craps!"

4 people found this helpful

Brendan Moody

A fine overview of American manifestations of a human foible

Reviewed in the United States on October 6, 2019

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This morning I finished reading The United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory, Jesse Walker's brief but surprisingly comprehensive history of conspiracy theories in American life. The first half of the book identifies a few major types of conspiracy theory and observes how they appeared and reappeared in the American past, while the second half focuses on paranoia in modern America. Throughout, Walker is evenhanded, thoughtful, humane, and quietly funny.

The discussion of conspiracy theories in modern American politics has some odd lacunae. Walker acknowledges that birtherism and 9/11 trutherism are emblematic of the modern paranoid mindset, but he discusses the details of the former only briefly and the latter not at all. Nor does he even mention the Clinton conspiracy theories of the 1990s. From his telling, the predominant paranoid trend in the politics of the last 25 years would seem to be left-wing and centrist overhyping of the far-right threat. This is perhaps not a perspective that has aged well since the book's publication in 2013. Walker isn't wrong that sloppy thinking has led to the conflation of distinct types of right-wing thought (though it is odd for a writer whose thesis is that cross-pollination is central to modern paranoia to become suddenly meticulous about distinguishing the secular, libertarian far right from the fundamentalist, authoritarian far right), but I'm not sure that rises to the level of a conspiracy theory.

The larger point of this fine book is that conspiracy theories are inevitable because they are a logical extension of the fundamental human impulse to impose meaning onto the universe. A world run by the Illuminati or the lizard people or the Rothschilds is at least a world with a discernible order that generates a clear sense of purpose. As Joan Didion wrote, we tell ourselves stories in order to live. And that's what a conspiracy theory is at the end of the day: a dramatic, unlikely, but internally consistent story.

19 people found this helpful

Ross

Everyone's paranoid

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 25, 2014

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A refreshing take on the history of paranoid cultures- conspiracy theories and moral panics- in the United States. The various forms of paranoia are grouped into enemies above, below, outside and within society as well as beliefs in benevolent conspiracies. What is interesting is how flexible the belief systems are- a belief in an enemy below, for example slave conspiracies can easily morph to fit a foreign enemy who are controlling them. The panics re-emerge repeatedly in slightly different forms over the centuries with a few superficial modifications to keep them updated.

What makes this book different to typical works about paranoid subcultures is that it acknowledges two under-appreciated points:

- Not all paranoid beliefs are unfounded. The US government for example has genuinely conspired to sabotage peaceful protesters and civil rights campaigners.

- Paranoia isn't confined to the margins, sometimes the powerful and mainstream have indulged in paranoid nonsense- one example Walker cites is the belief of the federal government that the militia movement of the 1990s was formenting rebellion, which led to the Waco siege when the false beliefs that a minor religious cult was stockpiling weapons, running a meth lab and holding people hostage leaving dozens of people dead.

The second half of the book is devoted to paranoia in modern culture- looking at films, television and ironic conspiracism.

It's well worth reading for a different take on a well explored genre.

2 people found this helpful

ReaderGuy

Enjoyed this

Reviewed in the United States on April 27, 2022

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I'm an import to America, and my love for this country is unassailable. I am here by choice. While Americans do not hold a monopoly on conspiracy theory by any stretch of the imagination, I did notice a greater prevalence of it when I moved here a few decades ago. This book was a thoroughly enjoyable read. Four stars. (I'm stingy about five; you need to astonish me–or write so beautifully that I pause to reflect on clever word choices–to get one of those.)

2 people found this helpful

Heyyou1203

Not what I expected

Reviewed in the United States on April 13, 2014

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This book was not a comprehensive history and review of conspiracy in America. Obviously that is hard to do in just one book, but most of his chapters were wasted. It started off very interesting, discussing a lot of historical conspiracy theories starting from the dawn of the country. It gave the historical context concerning general paranoia about slavery and rebellions, Native Americans, various political conspiracies from the early presidents, etc.

However, a lot of the 20th century conspiracies had to do with movies and biographies of individuals. While movie production of various themes can indicate something about society in general, that's a pretty weak thesis. There was no link as to why these movies indicated something greater, but just talked about the movies as if they should stand alone as proof of country-wide paranoia. Also, it wasn't as if Walker used the movies with conspiracy themes as just one example of paranoia in the given era, but at parts, it seemed like entire chapters were just a movie reviews. Conspiracy movies are always popular, so I wasn't really sure how talking about dozens of individual movies had anything to do with the greater society that produced them.

Other parts of the book described the lives of cult leaders, the hypocrisy in their own teachings, and then strength of their movements. Cult leaders will always exist, and they will always have followings, some stronger than others. If cults in general were discussed as a sign of how a minority of people can be overcome with paranoia, then that'd be one thing. But the details of the lives of a few leaders who aren't very well known seems silly.

I thought that the book was going be about the ability of a majority of normal, intelligent Americans to succumb to conspiracies, and the general sense of paranoia that has gripped many in the country for centuries, and perhaps get into the psychological explanations around those feelings. No psychology was discussed. Widespread conspiracies were discussed briefly with examples like the 9/11 truthers and Obama birther conspiracies, but that's it. It was informative and well written, but not what I wanted to read.

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