Conspiracy, Conspiracy Theories and Conspiracy Research Robin Ramsay ‘The unexpected and dramatic death of the famous, whether statesmen like John F Kennedy, or media stars like Marilyn Monroe, invariably give rise to conspiracy theories.’ Thus Cambridge historian, Christopher Andrew, during his disgraceful hatchet job on Hugh Thomas’ books about Rudolph Hess for BBC2 […]
[…] on particular historical developments, is typically rejected out of hand and assumed to be the figment of a paranoid imagination. The mere mention of the word ‘ conspiracy’ seems to set off an internal alarm bell which causes scholars to close their minds in order to avoid cognitive dissonance and possible unpleasantness, since the […]
Part 1 The world of ultra-right conspiracy theory is of interest to researchers into clandestinism for 3 reasons. First, because critics of research into clandestinism frequently attempt to bracket it together with ultra-right believers in The Protocols of Zion and similar fantasies.(1); secondly because the ultra-rightists, in the last decade, have been showing an […]
Definitions? Or Whoops! A paradigm An American magazine called Mondo 2000 ran an amusing piece called ‘The Conspiracy Top Ten’. In it ‘Zarkov’ offered this definition: ‘Conspiracies may be better understood as organizations pursuing their own ends, who desire no publicity as to their true objectives and methods.’ Which sounds interesting at first then […]
[…] in fact it is the elaboration of a hunch about the case – but an interesting hunch, I think. I take as proven that there was a conspiracy to murder Kennedy and a wide-ranging cover-up of the facts about the case. But I am not inclined to search for a gargantuan conspiracy. American politics […]
[…] episodes. I then got very involved trying to unravel some troubling aspects. For a week or two I went round in circles. I had assumed that a conspiracy had been involved in Stalker’s removal but as I read deeper and cross-checked the stories I began to doubt this explanation. Further on, and deeper still, […]
[…] satisfactorily explain or investigate any of the conflicting accounts of the crash itself. Much of the controversy surrounding the crash has been coloured by the enthusiastic pro conspiracy claims of Dodi’s father, Mohammed Al Fayed. Unfortunately this has resulted in some aspects of the events before and after crash being dismissed simply because they […]
[…] work, Bugliosi has definitively explained the murder that recalibrated America. It is a book for the ages.’ ‘Bugliosi is refreshing because he doesn’t just pick apart the conspiracy theorists. He ridicules them, and by name, writing that “most of them are as kooky as a $3 bill”….What Bugliosi has done is a public service; […]
The discussion of conspiracy in the mainstream media tends towards a very specific formula. The writer first notes with shock and disappointment the growing popularity of conspiracy theories and then goes on to provide explanations for this new popularity. This explanation almost always assumes that these theories about the ‘true’ nature of social reality […]
[…] This chunky paperback is intended to give readers an introduction to the world of conspiracies and the theories around them, as opposed to works which discuss conspiracy theories as a topic in their own right. It takes over 80 topics, divided into themes such as assassinations, mega-conspiracies, religion, USA, calamities and so forth, […]
