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

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Summary: The Consipracy of the Consipracy Theorists!
Review: Daniel Pipes evidently hates the on-going conspiracy of those who concoct conspiracy theories!

Using a form of historicism, he qualifies some interpretations that disagree with his vision as a conspiracy. While some major popular beliefs may be built on a conspiratorial theory or another, it is equally true that such theories do not survive long, and do not usually attract many subscribers outside an aggrieved community.

The world suffers a lot less from conspiracy theories than from actual conspiracies - that is if our historians are telling the truth. If they are not, well.. Daniel Pipes should start looking for an on-going �conspiracy� in our universities.

The book is of a doubtful historical or academic value

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Summary: Pipe's Conclusion: Conspiracy Theorists Are The Enemy
Review: Daniel Pipes is an anti-conspiracy theorist and he makes some good arguments against such allegedly paranoid thinking. Sure you don't trust the mainstream media, but why should you trust your local, possibly wacko, conspiracy theorist? You've read all the paranoid theories, why not read a critique against such theories? It will be a challenge and also just plain good for you.

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.

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Summary: Another Brilliant Book by Daniel Pipes
Review: I am a fan of Pipes' style and blatant honesty regarding Islam, which happens to be his area of scholarship and research. One's scholarly education often provides depth to other areas of interest, and his studies of the Middle East aid him in the world of Conspiracy in no small way.

I have only read a single chapter of this book online, and I am already sold. I do hope however that it will contain a better analyzation of conspiracy rather than a presentation of historical views.

As a christian, I am very familiar with the realm of conspiracy; since biblical interpretation is wrought with it. The essence of incorrect interpretation is eisegesis, which reads into the text that which was not the original intent of the author. One common area of this is eschatology: the study of the end-times; where people come up with rather strange end-time theories by making all of the prophecies of the past directly relevant to us today, rather than being historical events. Things such as reading Babylon as the Soviet Union, United Nations, or modern day Iraq.

Somebody not being familiar with biblical interpretation might have a harder time coming to terms with the fallacies of conspiracy, even though it is equally prevailant in the secular and political realm. A few I can note off hand is Bush's alleged war against Islam, Jewish involvement in 9/11, Senator Wellstone's plane-crash being a political assassignation etc.

In order for us to become conspiracy-free, it is necessary for us to live life objectively, and let boring events and subjects be boring; void of any ulterior motives or special-agendas.

I hope Mr. Pipes book better aids people in the quest for serious criticism.

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Summary: Pipes is anti-Muslim and a member of CFR
Review: I could not believe what I had in my hands when I started reading this book-a book about the history of conspiracy theories, written by a member of an elite group (I found out through a web search that Mr Pipes is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations) about which people have been harboring countless conspiracy theories for decades!

If you are interested in conspiracy theories, please do not let your research end with the limited interpretations contained in this book. It is written by a debunker working for the establishment, elite, status quo, or whatever you want to call it.
I however did find it a stimulating experience to critique it in my head as I read it as I continually noticed its biases and shortcomings.

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Summary: Very good book, concise and illuminating
Review: I found this book to be an excellent survey of the various different strands of conspiracy theories. Pipes goes through the long historical pedigree (if such a word is appropriate) of conspiracy theories, and he sets out a pretty good model for how to tell the difference between a nutty conspiracy theorist and a person with a healthy critical skepticism of the motives and actions of the government and other groups. While he is sometimes a bit too dismissive of those who agree with some conspiracy theories, his book is a useful antidote to the pseudo-intellectual quackery that many conspiracy theorists arm themselves with, and he shows the very real danger that these theories, when unchecked, can cause (e.g.: antisemitic theories and Nazism, antigovernment theories and the Oklahoma City Bombing). He also does a pretty decent job of putting the theories and theorists into a larger cultural and political context. However, for a good primer of conspiracies, real and imagined (I think, largely imagined), I'd also recommend reading "The 60 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time" by Jonathan Vankin and Ed Whalen (I think that is their names). Both of these books will keep you riveted, and introduce you to some fascinating and little-known facts.

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Summary: A shallow book
Review: Light-weight, thrown-together journalistic debunking from the academic ivory tower. Pipes rolls out the standard establishment academic line on 'conspiracy theory', that is, to give alternative explations any credence you have to be fluffy minded, inadequate, unintelligent, or follow some flavour of right-wing extremism.

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Summary: Why You Should Read Conspiracy
Review: The reviews here are ample enough reason to read this intriguing book. I became interested in conspiracy theory on the evening of September 11th when someone said to me something about how we'll never learn the real truth because you can't believe the government. I was a little more than perplexed by this back-to-the-paranoid-70's statement, and I decided to look for books on the topic.

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.

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Summary: Pipes is anti-Muslim and a member of CFR
Review: This book is typical of the genre that attempts to label all political critics as "anti-semitic" or "extremist". However, Pipes is a member of an organization that many contend is a part of the globalist or one-world-order movement (i.e., Council on Foreign Relations). He was recently named by the Bush administration to an organization of so-called "peace," yet he staunchly supported the horrendous bombing of innocent Iraqis and Afghanis. That is not peace, it is murder.