author of Plots, Designs, and Schemes: American Conspiracy Theories from the Puritans to the Present - Michael Butter
Bridging the divide between quantitative and qualitative approaches to the topic, Konda provides a comprehensive overview of the cultural and political work that conspiracy theories have done in the United States over the past two hundred years. He explains why these theories have recently made a comeback on the political stage and dissects a media landscape that increasingly tends to detect conspiracism everywhere.
Choice
Highly recommended. . . Incisive and engaging. . . Konda's assessment of the “new dynamics” of conspiracy theories in contemporary US politics is a significant contribution. Written with a clarity of expression rare in academic writing, the book is accessible to a wide readership.
Ploughshares
Offers insightful context for why the United States has become as obsessed with conspiracy theories as it is. . . . By weaving historical literature with contemporary studies, Konda is able to draw clear connections between the past and the present. . . . His objective and academic approach ultimately demystifies elements of alt-right media that, for many, seemed to come out of nowhere during the 2016 presidential election.
Fortean Times
There is plenty to be discovered here. . . Konda’s survey is perhaps the most comprehensive attempt yet to record and understand the phenomenon of conspiracy theory as it applies to American politics. . . You won’t find a catalog of mad musings in Conspiracies of Conspiracies; it’s largely a sober and reflective book (although Konda exercises a sly, dry humor on occasion) on a subject that is increasingly contentious, and increasingly central, in the discourses on American politics, science and medicine in particular. . . . Konda manages to give a clear picture of a subject that is more often obscured under a deluge of intensely partisan opinions.
The American Historical Review
The most comprehensive intellectual history of American conspiracy theories yet produced. . . . Konda describes the meandering but interconnected paths of American conspiracism in fascinating detail, based on his impressive work in the books and pamphlets that these theorists produced. . . . The most detailed genealogy of American conspiracy theories yet written.
Commonweal
Humans tell narratives, including the historical narratives that root us in a place and time, and Konda shows how conspiracist narratives have proved especially resilient because of this. . . . The sheer number of conspiracies makes exploration of each impossible here, but Konda discusses some striking examples that continue to affect public life.
Survival: Global Politics and Strategy
The last few years have seen a tidal wave of publications about fake news, delusional politics and conspiracy theories. Most of this literature is at best purely observational and much is superficial. Thomas Milan Konda’s Conspiracies of Conspiracies is an exception, standing out from the crowd by reason of its meticulous scholarship and precise definitions and taxonomies. It is also primarily a historical work, tracing the complex strands of conspiracism and conspiracy theories in the United States since 1789. It thus provides essential context for understanding our present mess. Conspiracies is the book that the others should have waited for.
author of A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America - Michael Barkun
Conspiracies of Conspiracies is clearly written and deeply researched, a fine-grained account of American conspiracism from the earliest years of the Republic to the present day. There is scarcely a manifestation that Konda has omitted, and periods that others have merely sketched out are presented here in a detail that can be found in few other places. The times being what they are, the subject is (alas!) likely to remain of interest for many years to come."
Kirkus Reviews
2019-02-03
People believe the darndest things—and, in the post-factual age, the thinking is getting weirder by the minute.
Confront a birther or a truther, and you're likely to turn up stranger beliefs still about such things as the Illuminati, the killers of John F. Kennedy, George Soros, and "almost anything having to do with Hillary Clinton." Such parcels of illogic aren't strictly new, of course. As Konda (Emeritus, Political Science/SUNY Plattsburgh) chronicles, they date at least to the rise of the Freemasons ("the visibility of lodges added a stridency to conspiratorial rhetoric, similar to conspiracists today who rail against the ‘sheeple' who cannot see the obvious"), and they hold in common a strong element of anti-Semitism and xenophobia as well as the paranoiac certainty that all one holds near and dear is in immediate danger. Yet, argues the author, conspiracy theory is now the coin of the realm, with what he calls conspiracism "the belief system of the twenty-first century." That belief system is a congeries of random claims—e.g., the government is hiding the truth about UFOs; Barack Obama is a Muslim, and a sizable number of American Muslims are sworn to attack America; Franklin Roosevelt knew all about Pearl Harbor long before the fact; climate change is a hoax; and so on. But as the author shows, various echo chambers amplify and extend the reach of what was formerly patent craziness. For example, he writes, "the alt-right has brought what had originally been a marginal neo-Nazi conspiracy theory to the strongest position it has ever held," now perilously near to mainstream thought. Konda's prose is sometimes drearily academic, but the theories he weighs and finds wanting are fascinating in their perversity, from chemtrails to climate change deniers.
A book that deserves wide circulation and consideration but that is likely to be drowned out in all the conspiratorial noise.
