HIS213H5: A History of the Present

Each chapter addresses important current questions, provides conceptual tools, defines important terms, and introduces the appropriate methods of analysis.

This handbook maps out the key debates, and includes chapters on the historical origins of conspiracy theories, as well as their political significance in a broad range of countries and regions. Other chapters consider the psychology and the sociology of conspiracy beliefs, in addition to their changing cultural forms, functions and modes of transmission.

This book provides both the foundational tools and the evidence to better understand conspiracy theories in the United States and around the world. Each chapter is informed by three core questions: Why do so many people believe in conspiracy theories? What are the effects of such theories when they take hold in the public? What can or should be done about the phenomenon?

Through a series of specific questions that cut to the core of conspiracism as a global social and cultural phenomenon, this book deconstructs the logic and rhetoric of conspiracy theories and analyses the broader social and psychological factors that contribute to their persistence in modern society.

Fear and uncertainty prompt people to believe false narratives of danger and hidden plots, but are not sufficient without considering the role and ideological bias of the media. This book focuses on making sense of how and why some people respond to their fear of a threat by creating or believing conspiracy stories. It integrates insights from psychology, political science, communication, and information sciences to provide a complete overview and theory of how conspiracy beliefs manifest.

The author decodes the psychology, history, and consequences of conspiracism, and delves into the research that offers insights into why so many of us are drawn to implausible, unproven and un-provable conspiracy theories.

The chapters make a deep dive into the nature and character of evidence itself by examining literal archives, though some quite unorthodox, as well as more popular archives that exist within public memory. Rice looks to examples that lie at the fringes of public discourse--pseudo-science, the paranormal, conspiracy theories about 9/11, the moon landing, UFO sightings, and Obama's birth record.

Joseph E. Uscinski and Joseph M. Parent draw on three sources of original data: 120,000 letters to the editor of the New York Times and Chicago Tribune from between 1890 and 2010; a two-wave survey from before and after the 2012 presidential election; and discussions of conspiracy theories culled from online news sources, blogs, and other Web sites, also from before and after the election. Through these sources, they are able to address crucial questions, such as similarities and differences in the nature of conspiracy theories over time, the role of the Internet and communications technologies in spreading modern conspiracy theories, and whether politics, economics, media, war, or other factors are most important in popularizing conspiratorial beliefs.

This book traces the country's obsession with conspiratorial thought from the early days of the republic to our own anxious moment. This book details centuries of sinister speculations--from antisemitism and anti-Catholicism to UFOs and reptilian humanoids--and their often incendiary outcomes.

Barkun shows how this web of urban legends has spread among subcultures on the Internet and through mass media, how a new style of conspiracy thinking has recently arisen, and how this phenomenon relates to larger changes in American culture.

Part I. Conspiracy Theory as Political Ideology
Part II. Uncovering the Plot of Conspiracy
Part III. Conspiracy in Everyday Life

Ch1. A Theory of Conspiracy   Ch2. But Is It True?
Ch3. Where Our Facts Come From   Ch4. Who Are the Conspiracy Theorists?
Ch5. The Ages of Conspiracy   Ch6. Conspiracy Theories Are for Losers
Ch7. Conspiring for the Common Good

Beginning in the 1950s, alleged sightings of unidentified flying objects in Canadian skies bred tension between the state and its citizens. While the public demanded to know more about the phenomenon, government officials appeared unconcerned and unresponsive. This book uncovers the history of the Canadian government's investigations into reports of UFOs, revealing how these reports were handled, deflected, and defended from 1950 to the 1990s.

Ch1. The Consent of the People: Presidential Secrecy and the First World War
Ch2. Lying Us into War?: The Second Battle of Pearl Harbor
Ch3. Masters of Deceit: Red Spies and Red Hunters in the McCarthy Era
Ch4. The Dealey Plaza Irregulars: The JFK Assassination and the Collapse of Trust in the 1960s
Ch5. White House of Horrors: Nixon, Watergate, and the Secret Government
Ch6. Trust No One: Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories from the 1970s to the 1990s
Ch7. Cabal of Soccer Moms 9/11 and the Culture of Deceit

The chapters, authored by established and emerging names in the field, pursue three goals. First, to analyse the meaning and novelty of 'fake news' and related notions, such as 'conspiracy theory.' Second, to discuss the mechanicsof fake news, exploring various practices that generate or promote fake news. Third, to investigate potential therapies for fake news.

Long before the current preoccupation with “fake news,” American newspapers routinely ran stories that were not quite, strictly speaking, true. Today, a firm boundary between fact and fakery is a hallmark of journalistic practice, yet for many readers and publishers across more than three centuries, this distinction has seemed slippery or even irrelevant.

The first publication is 1949.
The online version is available at https://www.fadedpage.com/books/20120511/html.php