The 80 Greatest Conspiracies O: History's Biggest Mysteries, Coverups and Cabals [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

This review is based on the last edition "The 70 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time," as I have yet to read the new edition. The one star reviewers clearly don't get it or the authors' sense of humor. It is fairly well researched, with every chapter having its own bibliography that lists "Major Sources" used. But, in all honesty, criticizing this book for a lack of research is like criticizing Wes Anderson's movies for not being realistic; you're missing the point entirely if you make such claims. (Anderson wrote and directed Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, and The Life Aquatic, four of the funniest movies you'll ever see.)

The other big complaint is that this is simply a rehash of other works. Again, I can't help but think that those readers are simply missing the point. It was not the authors' intent to do some groundbreaking research into any of these conspiracies. Their goal was to gather all of the research that has been done, synthesize it, and present the available information in an entertaining fashion. Mission accomplished. The authors have a keen sense of just how funny all of this is, as they state in the introduction:

"Just as Henry Kissinger cracks us up every time he intones his shoot-from-the-hip opinions as if he's reading from a stone tablet, we also see a good deal of unintentional humor in the dissenting conspiratorial worldview."

The authors do not claim to believe in all of these conspiracy theories. They are merely presenting them with whatever facts are out there. The ones that have no factual basis are derided for what they are: pure bunkem. Here is a quote from the chapter "Apocalypse at a Glance", where the authors are discussing Richard W. Noone's theory that the world will end on May 5, 2000:

"Though the book jacket claims that "astonishing evidence points to worldwide disaster in our lifetime," said evidence turns out to be culled mostly from fringe scientists such as Emanuel Velikofsky, making it likely that 5/5/2000's major event will be El Torrito's Cinco de Mayo happy hour."

Even the conspiracies that do have some factual basis are treated in tounge-in-cheek fashion. Take this quote from the "October Surprise" chapter:

"Soon the list of attendees was bulging, like the roster at a Shriners' convention. Everyone and his CIA handler had been at the Paris rendezvous, it seemed. Most claimed that French and Israeli intelligence operatives were also on hand to shepherd the clandestine deal and presumably enjoy a buffet style luncheon."

If you don't find those quotes even mildly amusing, then you probably won't enjoy this book. Personally, I love the authors' sense of humor and the fact that they don't take any of this too seriously. That being said, there are some very intriguing chapters here, most notably "The Man Who Got Too Close," about Danny Casolaro, a man whom I had never heard of before. His murder/suicide (it was ruled a suicide but seems more like a murder to this reader) raises some serious questions about just what kind of information he had gathered.

If you believe all of these conspiracy theories, then yes, you are a sucker. But if you're one of those people who thinks there is no such thing as a conspiracy, then you are also a sucker. As always, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. The key is being able to sort the information from the dis-information. This book will help you see what the truth really is, and you'll have a good time doing it.

Pay no attention to the "poorly researched" bad reviews. This is a great read and is well worth the price of admission. I highly recommended this book to anyone who finds the subject matter intriguing and/or entertaining. Just be sure to take it for what it is: an equal parts light hearted and serious look into the world of conspiracy.

I started reading this book back when it was only 50 conspiracy theories and a 4 second appearance on The X Files pretty much sold out the first printing in 3 days. The authors do a wonderful job of sorting through the wild eyed, feverish conspiracy writings and crafting excellent, detailed, knowledgeable overviews. They clearly approach each topic with a healthy degree of skepticism and humor. I mean some of these ideas are so freaky if you don't have a sense of humor, you'd want to beat some of these conspiracy idiots with a hardbound copy of the Illuminatus! trilogy. But they never let their skepticism get in the way of a good story, shall we say.

I heartily recommend this book.

"80 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time" is the largest, most expanded update of our book thus far. We've added ten extremely detailed chapters covering a welter of late-breaking and classic conspiracy theories not featured in our previous editions. That's almost 200 pages of new material, including:

-- 911
-- Anthrax
-- Votescam 2000
-- Enron
-- The Philadelphia Experiment
-- The Zodiac Killer(s)
-- Echelon, the global spying network
-- The CIA, LSD and the mysterious death of Frank Olson