The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.” What I wanted to do with this book is to lay out that this is almost like a playbook that gets run and that one step to defeating it is being aware that it’s used like this. When the next one comes along – because there will be a next one – maybe we’ll be able to get out ahead of it a little bit faster.”

Propaganda by Edward Bernays is the oldest conspiracy book on the list, originally written in 1928. The book outlines the psychology of manipulating the masses through the technique of public communication. Bernays is viewed by many media historians as the father of public relations. Noam Chomsky stated that:For some reason the author frequently writes in the present tense. For example (not a real quote, just to illustrate), "In 2012, Thiel goes to the store. He sees his rival, and debates what to say." Perhaps it's my historian bias, but this tense just seemed wrong and distracting.

A friend of mine compares the free speech debate to the gun control debate: when they wrote the First Amendment, the Founding Fathers could never have imagined that a high-powered Assault Press like Gawker could end up in the hands of a civilian.I'm still at large how to approach people subscribing to mainstream or fringe conspiracy theories, but this book has both increased my understanding and compassion for them, as strengthened my resolve to try and lend a helping hand. Absorbing + fascinating, one of those tales that's impossible to believe is a true story. Ryan Holiday is so quotable throughout the entire book, little nuggets of wisdom on society, moral high ground/obligation, conspiracy, power, history, perspective, decency, wealth, the media, the legal process, strategy, psychology, war-- I bookmarked a few of my favorites. So much to learn from this book, I wish all nonfiction was written this way.

This is an excellent book. It reminds me in some ways of one of my favorite nonfiction works, Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism, and not just because there is some overlap in topic. Like Cultish, Conspiracy is written with good humor and a lot of compassion towards the people who fall down the rabbit hole. It's funny and generous, freely pointing out the places where conspiracy theories have proven completely true (#freebritney, anyone?), and where people in authority have really not HELPED the anti-conspiracy-theory cause (spoiler alert: the CIA features in several of these examples). The history of conspiracy theories, it turns out, is a fascinating one, rife with prejudice (especially antisemitism, with class prejudice coming in a close second), miscommunication, and cognitive distortions. It's written with a light hand, with liberal applications of snark. What??? Where did that come from? This book would have had to have been written in the final months of Trump's first year as President. How can he possibly conclude that it is a travesty? A highly readable overview of conspiracy theories: how we create them, why we fall for them, how to spot them, why the internet has empowered them hideously. He says: “Almost any conspiracy theory starts with a legitimate question that I would agree: yeah, let’s look into that, let’s see what we can find. It’s the refusal to accept evidence when the evidence doesn’t pan out in the way that you want it to that leads to problems because then what you have to do is construct an increasingly elaborate conspiratorial framework to explain why you’re not finding the evidence you were hoping for. That’s where you get completely lost in the weeds.”Disclosure: Gawker has tried to get more than one of my friends fired, so I didn’t shed any tears when justice was served. High-fives may have been exchanged. It could be the naming of characters after Bond villains – the mysterious unelected Conservative fixer about whom she has collected so many spectacularly libellous-sounding stories that he cannot be named is dubbed “Dr No”. Or even the way Dorries, a woman far sharper than critics suggest, casts herself for narrative purposes as a political ingenue, roaming Westminster asking impossibly wide-eyed questions as she tries to establish who killed Boris Johnson’s career. Eventually, our amateur sleuth discovers it’s … Rebekah Vardy’s account! Just kidding: apparently it’s a sinister cabal called “the movement” comprising Cummings, Michael Gove, spin doctor turned BBC executive Robbie Gibb and various lesser-known apparatchiks who have “set out to control the destiny of the Conservative party” for 25 years. And that’s where the story falls apart.

The author gets there in the end, but there was too much hand-wringing in my opinion about why people virulently reacted negatively once's Thiel's role in the Gawker takedown became revealed. Not that complicated... With all the context above... this story reads like a great case study of the strategic thinking Greene promotes and the moral philosophy Holiday popularizes. So it was much more engaging and insightful this time. Witch trial in Salem, Massachusetts. Lithograph by George H. Walker. Undated. Photograph: Bettmann Archive While there certainly was intrigue, I did find the pace slower than I expected, especially with Ryan Holiday re-iterating multiple times the ideas around conspiracies and what happens when people feel wronged/vengeful, rather than focusing on the details of the story.While she’s right to see something deeply undemocratic in Cameron, May, Johnson and Truss all departing office without the voters getting a say, Dorries omits to explore Johnson’s own starring role in kneecapping the first two. Does the movement control him too? Could he be Dr No? Makes you think. From the Satanic Panic to the anti-vaxx movement, the moon landing to Pizzagate, it’s always been human nature to believe we’re being lied to by the powers that be (and sometimes, to be fair, we absolutely are). Boris Johnson campaigning for the Tory leadership in 2019, with Nadine Dorries and Liz Truss. Photograph: Joe Giddens/PA