The Little Book of Conspiracies: A Paranoiacs Pocket Guide [Paperback]

Joel Levy (Author), Kenneth Thomas (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 10, 2005

From fake moon landings to the murder of Princess Diana to the faked death of Jim Morrison, a modern-day paranoiac has plenty of reasons to keep looking over his shoulder. According to one survey, two percent of Americans indicate that they have been abducted by aliens. That's five million people right there. Why are they keeping silent? Who is holding back on the explanations, and why? Could one man act alone to assassinate a hugely popular American president? What dark secrets are harbored by the Bush family (and the British royal family) about their 1930s collusion with Nazis? Have the Freemasons secretly grasped control of the world's economy? The Little Book of Conspiracies reviews the essentials of fifty great and small conspiracies, whether documented or alleged, from your toothpaste giving you lead poisoning to the real reason the Titanic sank. Over 100 photographs and simple diagrams accompanying entries illustrate the heart of the theories, making it easy to be paranoid. Just pick your theory and find your page.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Running Press (July 10, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560257237
• ISBN-13: 978-1560257233
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,252,490 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars On The Little Book of Conspiracies, October 20, 2009

By 

BGP (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Little Book of Conspiracies: A Paranoiacs Pocket Guide (Paperback)

Conspiracies. They're everywhere!

As a good skeptic, I naturally take great pleasure in plumbing the depths of each and every semi-popular tinfoiler conspiracy to make its way across both web and town. Consequently, when I saw this little volume on remainder for less than a cup of coffee, I simply couldn't keep myself from buying it. In retrospect, I should have just saved my loose change for another drink.

While the book is, in and of itself, mostly enjoyable, Levy's primary source is Wikipedia (he even admits as much), making his work a pointless repository of unsubstantiated half-truths, at its best.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Read At Your Own Risk!, April 30, 2010

By 

Jaguar - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Little Book of Conspiracies: A Paranoiacs Pocket Guide (Paperback)

I couldn't figure out whether this guy intentionally chose to ignore a lot of facts and science out there with many of these subjects, just didn't do enough varied homework, or if this is an intentional hit piece. Just enough (though barely) in the +% range to pretend that he's not an all out conspiracy theory axe murderer. It didn't work. His blindfold glowed like nuclear waste!

Though I am adamantly opposed to banning any kind of books, if I were to ever do so, this would be on my list. The book is dangerous in the manner that it's so full of misinformation (or, disinfo) that it's extremely misleading to those trusting to find some truth in a quick summarized account. I have no problems at all with the quickie format but his ignorance, or out and out lies, are unacceptable.

Stay away from this piece of garbage at all cost! Unless, that is, you are just looking for something to kindle your fires.

Luckily, this book was unloaded to me for free; otherwise, I would be even more pissed off for all the time I lost reading this trash. Figured that I needed to make that time worthwhile by sharing this warning with others.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Nothing here, folks, July 16, 2008

By 

Lucius (northeast) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Little Book of Conspiracies: A Paranoiacs Pocket Guide (Paperback)

This little compendium is divided into 4 sections:

"It Could Be Happening to You: Dangers for everyone"

"Political Conspiracies and Colossal Cover-Ups"

"No One is Safe: Policical Assassinations and faked deaths"

"Sci-Fi Conspiracies: Aliens, lies and mind control"

Each 'conspiracy' begins with a one or two paragraph summary, then three more slightly detailed expositions: "What the theorists say", "The official line", and "How paranoid should you be?" which rates each case as a percentage.

Of the 50 conspiracies in this book, 23 rate between 0% and 5%. So, stop worrying, nothing to fear, it's all crackpottery. Except for the most obviously verifiable cases that rate higher than 50% (the Bush/religious right connection, the Bush/Saudi connection, Iraq WMD deceptions, CIA drug peddling, for example), the general trend in this book is to dismiss conspiracies as groundless and mostly "paranoid nonsense." As the author notes "Where the complexity of science leaves a vacuum of ignorance and misunderstanding, conspiracy theories will rush in to fill the void." (p. 134) Of course, it isn't clear why science leaves a "vacuum of ignorance and misunderstanding" but, hey, when you're paranoid and delusional, who cares what science says anyway.

But to give the author his due, at least he is willing to consider the very strong possibility that there is "obviously more to the Oklahoma bombing than meets the eye..." (70%), or that the post 9/11 anthrax scare is yet an unsolved mystery that served the interests of the neo-cons (82%), or that the the CIA developed so-called Manchurian Candidates (66%). On the other hand, the fact that the 4th section is characterized as science fiction says it all.