A Culture of Conspiracy

The author, Michael Barkun, is a political scientist, then working for Syracuse University. The book was published in 2003 by University of California Press. ==Summary==

Along with the Internet playing a key role in introducing individuals to beliefs once consigned to the outermost fringe of American political and religious life, Barkun points to the convergence of two phenomena that influence contemporary American conspiracism: • The rise of "improvisational millennialism" — a belief in an imminent destruction of the world and the creation of a new world as a result of the triumph of good over evil, which is independent from any single religious or secular tradition (e.g., Christian dispensational premillennialism, etc.) and indiscriminately syncretizes ideas from different traditions (e.g., Western esotericism, Eastern religions, New Age movement, fringe science, radical politics, etc.). • The popularity of "stigmatized knowledge" — claims to the truth that the claimants regard as verified (e.g., climate change denial, location hypotheses of Atlantis, astrology, alchemy, folk medicine, alien abduction, extraterrestrial hypothesis for UFOs, suppressed cancer cures, etc.), despite the marginalization of those claims by the authoritative institutions that conventionally distinguish between knowledge and error (e.g., academia, scientific community, etc.). ==Reviews==

Publishers Weekly gave the book a positive review, calling it "scholarly but fluently written and free of excessive jargon", and wrote that it "combines sociological depth with a deadpan appreciation of pop culture and raises serious questions about the replacement of democracy by conspiracy as the dominant paradigm of political action in the public mind." Paul Boyer described it as "in the tradition of studies of the cultural underground", and that Barkun "demonstrating the patience of Job, [...] only occasionally ventures a mild judgment". He concluded that "Barkun’s explorations, like the canary in the coal mine, warn us of what may lie ahead." Ray Pratt said that "despite intelligent efforts to frame the topic conceptually and theoretically, still leaves [him] seeking answers to some bigger questions about why the phenomenon of conspiracy culture persists and even seems to be growing". ==References==