History Decoded:  The 10 Greatest Conspiracies Of All Time, by Brad Meltzer with Keith Ferrell

As the author, himself an imaginative novelist and sometime consultant for the History Network, notes in the introduction to this book, the conspiracies we are fascinated by tell us (and others) a lot about ourselves.  Conspiracies flourish in environments of complexity and secrecy, where there is no trust between people and their governments, where governments seek to project an air of competence while the ordinary populace at large is positive that authorities are hiding something.  In such a poisonous atmosphere of mistrust and suspicion, belief in conspiracy theories flourishes.  In some ways, this is unavoidable, since we come from a culture that both enshrines the right to privacy as fundamental and also glories in knowing as much as possible about everything and everyone, whether one watches TMZ to see the hidden and shambolic lives of the stars or whether one is the government collecting data on every citizen’s internet and telephony behavior in giant databases to mine for suspicious patterns.  Conspiracies have been with us for a long time, and they will likely be with us for a long time as long as people have something to hide and others want to know [1].

This short book, consisting of 5 cds in the audiobook version and likely about 200 pages or so in its print version, consists of the author’s top ten list of favorite conspiracies.  Admittedly, some of these are ones I had never heard of before, but equally I am not necessarily the most alert and aware when it comes to conspiracies and conspiracy theories either.  The conspiracies chosen have a wide variety among them but are focused largely on the United States, with only two of them (the real DaVinci code and Hitler’s quest for the Spear of Destiny) focusing mainly on areas outside the United States.  This selection bias reflects the fact that Americans want to know about conspiracies of interest to Americans, and not on the many conspiracies relating to European, Latin American, African, Asian, or other historical traditions.  In general, though, within these parameters, the conspiracies chosen are genuinely interesting:  the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln (#10) and JFk (#1), the mysterious Georgia guidestones (#8), the skyjacking efforts of the mysterious Portland area resident D.B. Cooper (#7), the quest for Confederate gold (#9), the missing/hidden cornerstones of the White House and Capitol Building (#6), as well as conspiracies involving the supposed Spear of Destiny, the mysteriously hidden nature of Davinci’s Codex Atlanticus, the missing gold of Fort Knox, and what the government is hiding in Area 51 (#2).  The chapters themselves detail what is known about each case, the history and context of the conspiracy, the official story, and the thoughts of the author himself, as well as occasional comments about the course of the investigation and comments from the author’s investigative team.

While ultimately none of the conspiracies, with the possible exception of the federal government’s efforts at reverse engineering technology and the possible financial catastrophe that would result from knowing for certain that the United States could never again go on the gold standard because we do not have enough gold, none of them are really earth shattering for those who do not believe, for example, in the power of dubious relics or in the prophetic abilities of Leonardo da Vinci.  That said, the conspiracies themselves demonstrate, if it needed to be demonstrated, the corrosive lack of trust between authorities and common people, the general mistrust that people have of secret societies to begin with (like the Rosicrucians and the Freemasons, who are at the center of two of the conspiracies), and the fact that somewhat private intellectuals with a taste for layering their writings and art with many hidden meanings that they feel uncomfortable openly expressing tends to encourage others to believe the worst about the concealed meanings of those creations.  These are problems that are deeply relevant in our times, and I found to my unpleasant surprise that they were all too relevant to my own personal life, which was something I did not really expect.  For those with an interest in untangling conspiracies as best as possible, seeking neither to be led astray by undue credulity in the claims of government authorities nor by irrational skepticism, this is a worthwhile book about an interesting subject, despite its limitations in selection bias.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2015/07/11/book-review-the-paranormal-conspiracy/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/a-conspiracy-of-silence/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2012/01/14/the-arkanian-conspiracy/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/why-i-am-not-a-conspiracy-theorist/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2016/06/07/book-review-100-places-you-will-never-visit/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2013/07/03/if-you-wish-to-keep-a-secret-from-others-you-must-first-keep-it-from-yourself/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/11/06/two-people-can-keep-a-secret-if-both-of-them-are-dead/