Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies: The Straight Scoop on Freemasons, The Illuminati, Skull and Bones, Black Helicopters, The New World Order, and many, many more (Vintage) [Paperback]

Arthur Goldwag (Author)

Book Description

Series: Vintage | Publication Date: August 11, 2009

Did you know?

• Freemasonry's first American lodge included a young Benjamin Franklin among its members.

• The Knights Templar began as impoverished warrior monks then evolved into bankers.

• Groom Lake, Dreamland, Homey Airport, Paradise Ranch, The Farm, Watertown Strip, Red Square, “The Box,” are all names for Area 51.

An indispensable guide, Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies connects the dots and sets the record straight on a host of greedy gurus and murderous messiahs, crepuscular cabals and suspicious coincidences. Some topics are familiar—the Kennedy assassinations, the Bilderberg Group, the Illuminati, the People's Temple and Heaven's Gate—and some surprising, like Oulipo, a select group of intellectuals who created wild formulas for creating literary masterpieces, and the Chauffeurs, an eighteenth-century society of French home invaders, who set fire to their victims' feet.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“The kind of reference manual that the Internet cannot supplant . . . Goldwag keeps the facts straight and gives the rumors -- no matter how lurid and entertaining -- about as much respect as they deserve.”—The Washington Post

 “Marvelous.”—Scientific American

“Arthur Goldwag is a shrewd, fair minded, learned and entertaining tour guide through a world that’s simultaneously funny and frightening. Not a page goes by without some “I-didn’t-know-that!” nugget. Given what’s going on this ever-more-paranoid society, a book like this becomes not only titillating but crucially important.”—Steven Waldman, Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of Beliefnet.com

“The answer to your burning questions about subjects from Area 51 to the Yakuza.”—Details

“Delightful.” –The Weekly Standard
 
“Goldwag is a colorful writer who makes good use of his material as he aims to explain, rather than debunk or expose, a fascinating diversity of beliefs.”—Boston Globe
  
“The author’s delivery is engaging and entertaining. The amount of research done in this book is astounding. . . . An incredibly insightful, thoroughly enjoyable look at society’s shadow.”—Armchair Interviews

“Goldwag navigates his way through the wilder reaches of human belief with great urbanity.”
—Mark Booth, author of The Secret History of the World: As Laid Down by the Secret Societies

“As entertainingly written as it is enlightening.”
—Phillip Lopate

About the Author

Arthur Goldwag is the author of Isms and Ologies. A freelance writer and editor for more than twenty years, he has worked at Book-of-the-Month Club (where he created Traditions, a club devoted to Jewish interests), as well as at Random House and The New York Review of Books.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; 1 Original edition (August 11, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307390675
• ISBN-13: 978-0307390677
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.8 x 7.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #510,850 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Intended as an Appetizer, Not a Feast, October 7, 2009

By 

Richard Gazala (Vienna, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies: The Straight Scoop on Freemasons, The Illuminati, Skull and Bones, Black Helicopters, The New World Order, and many, many more (Vintage) (Paperback)

The lengthy title and subtitle of Arthur Goldwag's book, "Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies: The Straight Scoop on Freemasons, The Illuminati, Skull and Bones, Black Helicopters, The New World Order, and many, many more," belies the brevity with which he addresses most of the myriad subjects between the book's covers. It's true even a mildly avid researcher can find on the Internet or in a public library or well-stocked bookstore vast amounts of exhaustively detailed material devoted to each of the subjects Goldwag surveys in his book. This is the advantage, rather than disadvantage, of Goldwag's approach. Goldwag's book supplies only the tantalizing breadcrumbs. He leaves it for the reader to follow the trail if she's hungry to find more information on the matters that interest her, many of which she may never had known of before exploring Goldwag's work. Goldwag's writing is savvy, crisp and clean, often tongue-in-cheek, and he's not afraid to voice his personal opinion on some of the wackier Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies featured in his book. It's a quick, informative and entertaining read, which I believe is exactly what the author intended.

29 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Shopping Bag book of "cults", September 16, 2009

By 

Acropolis (Albany, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies: The Straight Scoop on Freemasons, The Illuminati, Skull and Bones, Black Helicopters, The New World Order, and many, many more (Vintage) (Paperback)

People who criticize this book are not "conspiracy nuts." That kind of blanket prejudice reflects one of the problems with Goldwag's book: it encloses such a wide range of groups within its narrow binding and slaps a provocative label on them. Given this pattern, why not include the Catholic church? Obviously, the book caters to the reader who sees any kind of secretive society as weird or "fringe" and loves having a new gossip partner in Goldwag. The book has no index, and it's definition of cults is simplistic and overly brief. At least, Goldwag acknowledges--or hints at--the legitimacy of the skepticism MANY have felt about 9/11 and the government's failure to prevent these attacks (after so many warnings). Instead of just listing all these societies and giving such brief, thumbnail descriptions of their, in some cases, long histories, why not include a sociological study of why people, being social creatures, form groups that in some cases devolve into "cults" or "secret societies"? Why group conspiracy thinkers, who may not even be "groups" in any formal sense of the term, with cults and secret societies? Are those who think Oswald may have been, as he himself said, a "patsy" or pawn conspiracy nuts? The gov't committee that reviewed the case in the 70's left open that possibility while supporting the Warren Commission's findings. The founding fathers were skeptical of big government AND of corporations. Were they a cult as well?

Part of my gripe with this book is its quick-read, throwaway packaging. A provocative title is slapped on an orange cover, all the indexing is in the table of contents for fast and thoughtless perusal, and the whole shopping bag of groups totals 384 pages. It's an airport purchase, designed to seduce us with its catchy, seemingly investigative title and subtitle. Notice how quickly they are being recycled into the "used" category. Is it possible that readers have found it lacking in substance? This book preaches to its choir of pragmatist readers, and the author gleaned his "information" from, of all sources, the internet, making this another quick-buck deal for the author and publisher.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing and entertaining, November 9, 2009

By 

ghostrider - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies: The Straight Scoop on Freemasons, The Illuminati, Skull and Bones, Black Helicopters, The New World Order, and many, many more (Vintage) (Paperback)

This book delivers what it promises. It's an entertaning, thoughtfully written compendium of the major groups, people, and ideas that have attempted to explain and/or manipulate this complex, mysterious, fascinating world we live in.

I've known about many of these cults, conspiracy theories and societies since I was a kid. Others have sprung into being during the half century that's elapsed since then. Still others are new to me. The wealth of information in these pages and the new details that Goldwag has unearthed on even familiar topics make this book a valuable resource here in 2009.

Some might quibble at the alphabetical organization within each of the book's three sections; I found it a bit odd at first. However, I'm hard pressed to come up with a better structure. It allows Goldwag to tell the full story of each topic he addresses, whether it stretches over tens or hundreds of years. It also makes it easy to zero in on items that might hold particular interest, and to find your way back to them later. Sources are cited frequently throughout the text for anyone interested in delving more deeply into a particular area.

Goldwag clearly is writing from the perspective of an interested rationalist. That's bound to push the buttons of some folks who hold certain notions as articles of faith. A few of the reviews here are evidence of that. For me, there's something intruiging and thought-provoking on every page. That's exactly what I want from a book of this sort.