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David Aaronovitch

Voodoo Histories: How Conspiracy Theory Has Shaped Modern History Paperback – May 6, 2010

by David Aaronovitch (Author)

4.1 241 ratings

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Did Neil Armstrong really set foot on the moon?

Was the United States government responsible for the 11 September attacks?

Should we doubt the accidental nature of Diana's death?

Voodoo Histories entertainingly demolishes the absurd and sinister conspiracy theories of the last 100 years. Aaronovitch reveals not only why people are so ready to believe in these stories but also the dangers of this credulity.

*Includes a new chapter investigating the conspiracy theories that question Obama's legitimacy as president *

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Print length

400 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Vintage
Publication date

May 6, 2010
Dimensions

5.08 x 0.98 x 7.8 inches
ISBN-10

009947896X
ISBN-13

978-0099478966
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Pictomaniac

Fun and fascinating

Reviewed in the United States on January 29, 2017

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Part of reading for a course on how history is written. This book is fun and fascinating.

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Garman Lord

Somewhat Disappointing

Reviewed in the United States on March 18, 2010

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It's probably our own fault if those of us who like to judge a book by its cover find this one a bit less juicy than we might have hoped. In this case, though the topics covered are often juicy enough, Aaronovich's evident presumption that conspiracy theories are always BS takes a lot of the narrative sauce off the ball. It may be the reason why his research seems a bit sloppy at times (he mentions Samuel FB Morse as having written a virulent anti-Masonic book in 1835; actually it was a virulent anti-Catholic book, not the same thing at all,) not to mention superficial. He seems, for instance, to swallow the Warren Report hook line and sinker, and to dismiss the notion of a JFK assassination conspiracy in terms that make you wonder if he ever really studied the subject. An approach this atheistic is bound to throw out many a baby with the bath.

My own approach learned to be a bit more agnostic a long time ago. The reality seems to be that on the one hand, from time to time, conspiracies (eg the JFK assassination) really do happen. On the other hand, sh** happens too, all the time (eg 9/11, Iraqi WMDs, death of Princess Diana,) and may often look like conspiracies to those with sufficiently vivid imaginations who need to get out more. And all too often (eg the BK/MLK assassinations,) you just plain can't be sure one way or the other, for a long time to come, if ever. In the end I suspect it's generally less a matter of hard evidence than of shrewd individual intuitive faculties and worldly experience, and the proneness of all of us to see or not see what we want to see or not see and disregard the rest.

Aaronovich starts with a couple of old chestnuts that one might wish had been put to rest a long time ago, ie the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the Holocaust, and which might make you think you're in for some heavy sledding before he ever gets into the good stuff. Before he's done, however, this tends to work out better than expected. His Protocols discussion, in particular, strikes me as the best analysis I've ever read on this particular subject and, taken together with the Holocaust discussion, really does lay some solid groundwork for all the matter to come. He touches base on pretty much everything you might expect; FDR Pearl Harbor foreknowledge, McCarthy era paranoia, lone assassins or otherwise, the Marilyn Monroe murder, Diana car crash, DA VINCI CODE/HOLY BLOOD HOLY GRAIL, etc. etc, all the way up to 9/11 and beyond to the Tea Baggers, etc. Along the way, the many milestones he misses or dismisses, sometimes rather selectively, may cause misgivings for buffs on these subjects, until we remind ourselves that the book is only some 350-odd pages long after all (with 30-odd additional pp of pretty good notes/biblio/index, it should be noted.)

In the main, there seem two defects, from my point of view. One is that Aaronvich being British, the perspective of the book is quite British, with a considerable section devoted, for instance, to the suspicious death of Hilda Murrell, an interesting case bearing some analogies with the death of American Karen Silkwood, but unfamiliar territory for most Americans. The other is its skeptical underpinnings. A need to get out more would seem to apply as much to Denyers as to Believers, in this as in every other field of inquiry. In the end, I wasn't quite sure just what Aaronovich's takeaway message to me was about the whole conspiracy business, yet was not left with any sense that the author had completely wasted my time. It's an interesting read withal; I was disappointed, but only mildly so.

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Kate Shaw

This book was a disappointment. I saw the author on a program about ...

Reviewed in the United States on October 9, 2014

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This book was a disappointment. I saw the author on a program about 9/11/01 and he was interesting in person; however, this book was a michegoss of other conspiracies that were presented from a liberal POV.

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C. Ross

The tell-all!

Reviewed in the United States on April 19, 2010

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Conspiracies are not only garbage, but as Aaronovitch makes so clear, dangerous. A reflection of our own fears of our impotence, conspiracies take on their own lives poisoning history by defecating on the present, to the ruin of the future. Everyone should read Aaronovitch's book, a cold shower for the overheated.

5 people found this helpful

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Julia

doot

Reviewed in the United States on April 25, 2017

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Does what it's designed to do

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Mr. Twisted

What the book is, and what it is not

Reviewed in the United States on June 25, 2010

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After reading several of the negative reviews, I thought a more pointed one was needed in response to clear a few things up for those who have not read the book.

First off, the book is very well written and in a fast-paced, easy to read styles. It's not boring (regardless of agreeing with the author or not), nor is it overly long.

That being said, it brings me to my main point: this is not a scholarly, historically exhaustive work of research; it is an investigative look into how conspiracies begin and the people who latch on to them. Does that mean that it's not researched? No, there is a fairly extensive bibliography, and he has clearly documented his sources. However, it is not done in the way a historical textbook would do so -- but there again, it's not written from that point of view.

The key to remember here -- and this is for those negative reviewers who so adamantly want to hold on to their theories -- is the theme of how these theories get started, and why they become popular. This is of special interest to me because it is clear that there has to be a motivation for believing in most conspiracy theories; one has to *want* them to be true at some level for them to get off the ground, otherwise they wouldn't due to the incredible lack of factual support.

But here we come to the famous rebuttal offered up (which I have seen in the reviews here): "We are just asking questions. That's why it's a 'theory' and it's not perfect. But you have to admit that ____ and ____ don't add up!" This statement -- or a similar form -- is offered up every time a conspiracy theorist is confronted with hard facts. And this book addresses that exact issue, rather than going down the road of saying "here's this reference, and this one, and this one, and this one..." The fact is, any story in history, if viewed long enough and from enough angles (if I stand on my head and close one eye) can be a questionable occurence that looks "suspicious." I think if one investigated hard enough, they could probably find evidence suggesting that the NFL is fixed, politicians are really aliens, the military is spying on cats, that Jews are actually Chinese and that your own Mom is not who she says she is.

For those of us who have actually held a security clearance and worked in government, however, this book is quite refreshing and right on the money -- as much as we would like everyone to believe that we can pull off some grand conspiracy and keep huge secrets, we're just not that capable. Really, I wish it were different.

And to answer the question of why I gave it four stars instead of five, well...it's not that it wasn't good, I just save the five-star rating for something that really sets my hair on fire. If I throw those things out with every book I like, it hurts the credibility of the rating system. That's how I roll.

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Marcus Olifant

Wider die Unverbesserlichen

Reviewed in Germany on September 30, 2014

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Es gibt einige Literatur, die sich mit Verschwörungstheorien kritisch befasst. Dieses Buch ragt heraus, weil es ohne Umschweife die Dinge auf den Punkt bringt, gut recherchiert ist und mit teilweise erfrischend ironischer Distanz den Hokuspokus der Verschwörungstheoretiker zerlegt.

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Mark Meynell

The Conspiracy Theory: That Peculiar Spawn of Postmodernism

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 5, 2010

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If you had to sum up postmodernism in one word, I think a strong (but by no means only) contender would be the word SUSPICION. Suspicion of power, suspicion of motives, suspicion of truth claims - in short, suspicion of absolutely everything and everyone. And of course what is one insidious but pervasive manifestation of suspicion? The Conspiracy Theory.

The twentieth century seems to have bred such theorists - they're everywhere. And they have their audience over a barrel - if you question or disagree with them, you're just a patsy, gullible putty in the oppressors' hands. Then if you present a substantial case against them, well, you can hear the lines already:

- `aah, but there's no smoke without fire...' (that cowardly retort of the gossip);
- `hey, I'm just asking questions' (when of course, they're doing no such thing);
- `but what about Watergate?' Well yes, that was a conspiracy, and yes, politicians are often corrupt. But think about it. Watergate was such a grubby and unambitious conspiracy (i.e. covering up the business of eavesdropping on political opponents) compared to the more extreme theories people tenaciously hold to.

And they are often extreme and extraordinarily ambitious. If true, many of these would need not just scores but hundreds and even thousands of accomplices (unwitting or otherwise) - who ALL keep quiet (by force or voluntarily). Just glancing down the list of conspiracies tackled by the journalist David Aaronovitch in his recent book, Voodoo Histories, makes clear how ambitious some of these are:
- Protocols of the Elders of Zion - a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world (now clearly proven to be a fraud - and yet scarily, still touted in Islamist circles as a justification of their opposition to Israel's existence)
- Stalin's purge of Trotskyites incl Pyatakov in 1937
- President Roosevelt knew (and even wanted) Pearl Harbor - even people like Gore Vidal subscribe to this view
- Senator McCarthy's suspicions of communists in government
- The 'mysterious?' deaths of popular `deities': JFK, RFK, Marilyn Monroe, Princess Diana
- Doubting whether or not the moon landings ever took place
- The 'mysterious?' death of Hilda Murrell & nuclear conspiracies in the 1980s (a conspiracy championed by the otherwise redoubtable Tam Dalyell MP)
- Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln's thesis about the descendents of Jesus in Holy Blood and Holy Grail, as picked up by Dan Brown and the Da Vinci Code
- Erich Von Daniken's theories and books Chariots of the Gods? Was God an Astronaut?
- 9/11 & 7/7 conspiracies - from the "let it happen on purpose" (LIHOP) types to the "made-it-happen-on-purpose" (MIHOP) types.
- David Kelly's suicide after his Commons Select committee testimony about Iraqi weapons evidence
- The 'birthers' who doubted Obama's birth certificate & rumours of the Clinton "body count".
That's an extraordinary, comprehensive list - and these are just some of the most prominent ones (go online and you'll find a conspiracy theory to suit every conceivable taste and obsession). This book is a fascinating but chilling read. Some theories are very popular - and even regarded as de rigeur if you don't want to look a fool (e.g. JFK was shot by two shooters at least. Wasn't he?).

Aaronovitch is clearly a sceptic. But his research methods and approach seem impeccable, logical and at times exhaustive. He presents a convincing case at many points. He produces clear evidence to prove their idiocy, even if it has appeared long after their fashions has waned. There is so much common sense here - that it is a book worth lending to any with conspiracist inclinations.

THE CATHOLIC COVER-UP AT RENNES-LE-CHATEAU?
Bizarrely enough, one of his most compelling chapters (I'd not anticipated this at all as I'd not even noticed its inclusion when I picked the book up), was his merciless dismantling of the ludicrous theories behind Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code. Many Christian apologists have done a great job at approaching the evidence from an ancient historical perspective. What was so compelling here was his observations of the evolution of this particular narrative: a nineteenth century catholic parish priest who mysteriously becomes rich. This clearly means that was paid off by Rome to keep schtum about what he'd uncovered - i.e. the genealogical line of Jesus & Mary Magdalene. Well Aaronovitch shows that this whole business bears many of the hallmarks of other conspiracy theories.

What is not often appreciated (I certainly hadn't realise this) is that practically ALL the main perpetrators in France of the Merovingian mythology have since admitted that the whole thing is a hoax. Here's a flavour of Aaronovitch's style (himself from a Jewish Marxist background with certainly no axe to grind in favour of Christianity):
"The playful Henry Lincoln [one of the co-authors of Holy Blood & Holy Grail] has also been fond of using the partiality and contradictory nature of New Testament interpretations to sanction his own liberties. Is it more likely, he asks, that a man should have been born of a virgin, been able to walk on water and rise from the dead than that he should have been born as other men are born, married, and raise a family? It's a good line, but the trouble is that while the Gospels do create some evidence for a man called Jesus who led a religious movement in the early years of the Roman empire, there is no evidence whatsoever from any source at all for that man being married or having children. None." (pp199-200)

This is how he sums up the chapter - the main protagonist, Pierre Plantard, being the centre of the story's attention as the one claimed to be a descendent of Jesus Christ himself.
"It was all a hoax, every bit of it. It began with a story, which then developed into a massive fantasy, support for which was manufactured by forging documents. Many of these were lists of names copied from other genealogists and registers, and then tinkered with; others were invented travelogues. The motives of the participants are varied. De Cherisey was interested in surrealism and in the 1960s was involved in an organisation called the Workshop for Potential Literature (Oulipo), in which the members played around with puzzles, ciphers and codes. Plantard, as we have seen, had been trying most of his life to give himself some significance through shadowy or secret organisations, joining the many people through the centuries who have been attracted to the idea of membership of a clandestine society with elite, and sometimes occult, powers to organise the world. Finally, there were those motivated simply by money. (p204)"

CUI BONO?
There are some great lines. In a previous section, referring to Princess Diana's death in a Parisian tunnel, he refers to the theories put by some ex-MI5 agents, and draws in a magnificent line from Umberto Eco's breathtaking Foucault's Pendulum.
"Studying the competing claims of various secret sources, one can see that to believe one is to disbelieve the others. Whether the authors who used these sources were complicit in what must, at the very least have been a series of hoaxes is impossible to say. But if one were to ask the old conspiracist question Cui bono? (Who benefits?), the answer seems obvious. I say 'seems' because in this world every debunkable theory could in fact be disinformation put out by the Establishment/security services to throw investigators and the public off the scent. Such a hypothesis was put forward by former MI5 officer Annie Machon on Channel 4's Richard and Judy in 2005. It was the very stupidity of some of the theories surrounding Diana's death, she told her interviewers, that first convinced her that the accident was in fact murder. She had been alerted to the conspiracy by the classic MI6 disinformation technique of suggesting conspiracies. Or, as Umberto Eco put it, "The Rosicrucians were everywhere, aided by the fact that they didn't exist."" (p150)

Or take this, about the death in the 1980s (subsequently proven to be the result of a break-in gone horribly wrong) of Hilda Murrill a known anti-nuclear activist. This was taken up as a cause by the famous Labour Old Etonian MP, Tam Dalyell.
"While the notion of members of the British security services going around bumping off little old ladies in English market towns (more or less the exact opposite of their official role) may have amazed most MPs, it simply angered Mr Dalyell." (p175)

And I like this idea of an 'equal-opportunity conspiracist', in his analysis of Gore Vidal's various political theories!
"Vidal, like Philip J Berg, was an equal-opportunity conspiracist, and was comfortable whether accusing FDR, Harry Truman, LBJ, Bill Clinton or George W. Bush, of complex and dastardly secret acts for various nefarious purposes - usually as pretexts for war or domestic crackdowns." (p303)

CONSPIRACY COMMONALITIES
So what do these theories have in common? Well, in drawing various threads together, 4 features particularly struck me

(i) A history for losers and the disempowered
As Aaronovitch observes: "There is a more than plausible argument to be made that, very often, conspiracy theories take root among the casualties of political, social or economic change." (p326) You can certainly see this in the American political scene, where accusations of all kinds of dastardly plots are levelled against the White House from the left (if it has a Republican incumbent) and from the right (if it has a Democrat). There's a type of comfort, a moral high ground even, in the notion of being beaten by skulduggery (rather than having to admit that your policies or candidates were rubbish).

(ii) An ironic credulity
Conspiracists accuse those who believe official statements or explanations or reports as being gullible. And as said at the start, there are often good grounds for believing in the corruptibility of those in power. After all, that's precisely what lay behind the American constitutional system of checks and balances. But the conspiracies believed are so extraordinary, so over the top and involving so many different people, that to believe them is more incredible. As Aaronovitch points out, people seem quicker to believe the almost ridiculous than to accept the (often tragic but) simplest explanation (as applying Occam's razor might suggest). (p253)
But this credulity is perhaps motivated by something else, something deeper, and this is what really struck a chord with me...

(iii) A desire for proper ending - a story that improves on reality
Conspiracy theories provide a means of avoiding the occasionally irrational and meaninglessness of human existence. We yearn for our lives to be part of a narrative. We long for the tragic to have a purpose. A conspiracy theory provides just such a narrative. Aaronovitch quotes from one Sarah Churchwell about Marilyn Monroe's death: `it is only narrative that promises a reason for early death; reality offers no such assurance' (p161).
"The American playwright and screenwriter [David Mamet]'s fourth collection of essays almost starts with the words, `It is in our nature to dramatize'. By this Mamet doesn't mean that we are a bit histrionic sometimes, but rather that we need to construct, or have constructed, dramas and stories for ourselves. Their patients, like the rest of us, invariably have a story about inexplicable or mundane aspects of our lives. Our illnesses are due to stress or genetics or that day we went out for a walk and it was cold. Adopted children very often create a backstory of their real parents, and unadopted children have fantasies of their `real' mothers and fathers. As Mamet points out, we will ahve a story even if it means giving characteristics to the elemental. So `the weather is impersonal, and we both understand it and exploit it as dramatic, i.e. having a plot, in order to understand its meaning for the hero, which is to say, for ourselves.'" (p339)

Bad things happen - it's a fact of life. Conspiracy theories somehow make them easier to accept. They provide someone to blame.
"A New York fire chief asked to account for the various theories surrounding the collapse of buildings at the World Trade Center attributed them to the disappointment of people's belief in the omnipotence of the emergency services. `In the movies,' he said, `it's always wrapped up in the end.' Or as Norman Cohn puts it when discussing paranoid thought in his history of apocalyptic movements, people cannot accept `the ineluctable and imperfections of human existence, such as transience, dissension, conflict, fallibility whether intellectual or moral.'" (p341)

(iv) Suspicion is fair enough - but such power is a delusion
Scepticism is a healthy means for discovering truth. But scepticism can turn back in on itself, so that people cease to be sceptical about the things they're sceptical about! They believe that human power is far greater than it really is - and see conspiracies everywhere. Whereas in reality, human beings are nothing like as omnipotent as we like to admit (as the New York fire chief knows all too well). But this suspicion is the epitome of postmodernism. Lyotard defined it as 'an incredulity towards all metanarratives'; the conspiracist extends that to an incredulity to all official explanations as well! And as Aaronovitch observes:
"This is an approach that dovetails with an intellectual trend that has become increasingly attractive to academics and intellectuals in recent years. Loosely labelled postmodernist, or post-structuralist, one aspect of this inclination is a distrust of normative notions of truth. `You show me your reality,' it suggests, `and I'll show you mine.' All accounts of events are essentially stories, and no single account ought to be privileged above another. It is a seductive and not entirely worthless way of looking at the world." (p331)

But it's not entirely liveable nor real either. And ironically enough, it doesn't stop the conspiracist holding to their theory as nothing less than the gospel truth.

All in all, this is a brilliant book. Gripping, intelligent, persuasive. It actually faces up to truth and reality in a much more honest and uncomfortable way than many conspiracists ever do. So when someone next spouts out some conspiracy theory about this that or the other, you never know. It might lead to a discussion of much bigger things...

bianca deamer

Klare Kaufempfehlung!

Reviewed in Germany on April 4, 2017

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Spannend, fesselnd und faszinierend ....von Anfang bis Ende!!!
Lesen, wundern und Bauklötze staunen...............
Das Buch ist - meiner Meinung nach - jeden Cent wert!

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Orangutan

Good but frustrating

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 20, 2009

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The first part of this book was really enjoyable - a pretty detailed look at the anti-Semitic conspiracy Protocols, a fascinating account of the anti-Trotsky faction trials in Russia, some in-depth insight into Mccarthyism and its origins.....

then it goes somewhat downhill. The JFK/Marilyn Monroe stuff, fair enough, but to have an entire chapter devoted to the death of Hilda Murrell? How does this conspiracy in any way "shape modern history"? It's passed largely into obscurity. A chapter on the associated Da Vinci code conspiracies? It's just shooting not very interesting or important fish in a barrel. The chapter on 9-11 conspiracies would probably be of interest to people who haven't previously read of this in detail (though i expect many have). Ditto the Diana conspiracies - but i can't believe there are many people left in Britain not already sick to death of that one....

It's frustrating because the book never really delivers what it promises - evidence of how conspiracies have actually shaped modern history. And yet with less of a British focus there was some fantastic source material to be used - the Russian apartment bombings used as the pretext for the Chechen war. They warrant a genuinely interesting discussion of the facts. Ditto the poisoning of Litvinyenko or the poisoning of Viktor Yushchenko.
Or the "HIV does not cause AIDS" conspiracy and associated beliefs that it was all a western imperialist conspracy. This led to SA president Mbeki dismissing the use of retro-virals and to the unnecessary deaths of tens (if not hundreds) of thousands. Or keeping with the British theme, a discussion on Lockerbie, probably the most interesting British conspiracy (in terms of political intrigue) of the last few decades. All in all I couldn't help thinking that this was a missed opportunity to create something special.

I've given the book 4 stars because i did enjoy it, but it could have been an exceptional book given the source material available. As it is it is a readable though slightly disappointingly flawed work....

peter

voodoo histories

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 9, 2012

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This is, apparently, a very well researched book that deals with a variety of historical and more recent events where conspiracy theory plays a part, even today.

This book seems to base itself on the premise that, being influential on the beliefs of modern-day citizens, conspiracy theory is misleading if not actually nonsense. The reason for publishing this title may well be because 'Officialdom' finds itself frustrated that its authorised version of a particular event is simply not believed by an increasingly cynical public. See, conspiracy theory can be applied anywhere that 'officialdom' raises its undemocratic head.

The trouble is that, 'official' versions of the same truth are often politically motivated, as too many miscarriages of British justice over the years will testify. Plus, that coincidence can often be interpreted as evidence of conspiracy.

Regardless of all that, it is certain that people DO conspire and that they DO huddle together in a common cause and that team-working is tribal, and occurs as a natural and ancient survival tactic.

That's why this book, a treatise that largely de-bunks Conspiracy Theory, has importance for gaining a 'balanced view'. But is the author of this this book politically motivated? - has he set out with the express purpose of 'rectifying' public cynicism of the official version of events - or does he present an unbiased view of the several possibilities? No - Conspiracy Theory is his intended target.

For me it is too committed to rubbishing what comes naturally to most people - cooperative activity in a common cause. Were it not for the negative connotations of the word 'conspiracy' itself, more people would be inclined to admit to their own cynicism of the official versions of, what are, unbelievable events. Iraq war anybody? Doctor Kelly?

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