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The Little Book of Conspiracies: A Paranoiacs Pocket Guide

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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.

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.

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.

Conspiracy theories are, for the better or more like for the worse, an integral part of our culture. Nowadays we take it for granted that as soon as there is some major newsworthy event (especially ones that deal with death and/or destruction) it won't be too long before a sophisticated new conspiracy theory emerges. Some of these conspiracies will stand the test of time, in terms of their stickiness if not factuality, but the vast majority will fade away. This little book aims to give a more or less comprehensive account of some of the most outrageous and enduring conspiracy theories that are in circulation today.

The fifty theories that are covered in this book are divided in four general sections: conspiracies that affect all of us, political conspiracies, political assassination and deaths, and sci-fi conspiracies. Each conspiracy is presented in opposition to the official story, and then debunked with the arguments and facts that are readily available. This book will probably not dissuade the die-hards, but it is a good quick reference for all of us who want to have the facts readily available.

A few conspiracy theories that didn't make it in this book which I would have liked to see featured (and debunked) are: the Freemasons, the Jewish banking lobby, and, of course, the birtherism. The last one of these three still has an uncomfortably high level of devotion in the US, but the other two are very prominent in various parts of the World.

My one major complaint about this short book has to do with the level of paranoia that each one of the conspiracy theories should warrant. Like with all lies, there are elements of truth in all of these conspiracy theories. However, the levels of credibility that this little book assesses for various theories seems to be based on little more than the author's worldview and opinion. More often than not these assessments are extremely ideologically slanted, and come across as tendentious. This is unfortunate because it brings into question all of the other material in this book. However, the main brunt of the arguments presented here is very solid and convincing.

If you have ever come across someone who "knows" what is "really behind X", and have been at loss for words in the face of the sheer inanity of their arguments, then you will definitely appreciate "The Little Book of Conspiracies." However, you should also read it with a big grain of salt.

You will seriously have to struggle to finish this book, as it ignores so many facts and instead of concluding the obvious, which it alludes to, it presents so many seriously damming issues as simply wild imaginations of paranoid schizophrenics. If there is one thing you should be worried about, it's in reading this book and becoming brainwashed that there really is nothing to worry about. Thankfully, this book was a gift, otherwise I'd demand my money back, and then some more for pain and suffering.

Ok. This book LOOKS promising, and it does have some good conspiracy theories in it. The bad outweighs the good though. The author doesn't quote any body, he doesn't interview any conspiracy theorists, he doesn't even mention the Philadelphia Experiment, and he also omits a ton of other topics/subjects as well. The book is good if you wanna read a brief summary of a few theories, but that's about it. You won't leave from reading this book an expert on anything. I personally didn't like it too much, but someone else might. What I really didn't like was he went from fluoride poisoning people to Elvis still being alive. I mean c'mon, there are WAY more important conspiracy things out there than Elvis. Also, he doesn't examine anything to do with UFOS other than when he debunks abductions and mentions them briefly and I mean REALLY briefly. So yeah this book is ok if you wanna read something mediocre, but that's about it. All in all I'd give it a 2/5.

The book is a great attempt to compact common conspiracy theories into one book and state whether or not to believe in them.

Unfortunately he takes on Fluoride and states there is nothing to worry about while science is proving almost that this chemical not only does not prevent tooth decay but is linked directly to Alzheimer's and other dementia like issues as people age.

He then takes on Aspartame and reassures us that there is nothing to worry about even though science is showing this chemical to be even more harmful than DDT - but who cares he made money, got published and is now an author

To see how one person would sell out other to make a buck then this book is for you