Rate this book

Among The Truthers: A Journey Through America's Growing Conspiracist Underground (2011)

by Jonathan Kay(Favorite Author)

3.19 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0062004816 (ISBN13: 9780062004819)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Harper

review 1: Here we have a book on that most intriguing and, unfortunately, growing ever more common, species, the North American Loonbat. We all know at least one. That guy (as Kay points out, it's invariably a guy) who believes that 9/11 was an inside job, that the world is controlled by a shadowy group of super villains who are so competent that they stand astride the world like a colossus, yet somehow you can still figure out everything they're up to by reading a few books and doing some internet searches. It's the paranoid who thinks that Obama is plotting to take away our guns and force women to have abortions so that he can usher in a Sharia backed socialist Muslim theocracy after all of the good upstanding Christians and patriots have been shuffled off to the FEMA death cam... moreps or murdered in their sleep with public health care.That guy.Kay set out to write a sort of scholarly, sociological analysis of that guy, delving in to the history, politics, and psychological motives of the common Loonbat and their theories. The result is both very informative and entertaining at the same time. Kudos to the author for achieving such a rare and difficult combination. Anyone who has looked around at the alarmingly fast decay of public discourse and "thought" over the past decade or so will find this one well worth their time.Politics is a factor here, of course. Conspiracy theorists tend to accumulate at the far ends of the spectrum, after all. Of interesting note is the fact that Kay is a self identified conservative. It speaks volumes that I didn't even realize this until part way through the book, and I had to check an outside source to confirm it. Kay's conservative leanings are far more nuanced and even handed than most of what passes for conservatism these days, and I found myself wishing that more conservatives were like him. Although some of that comes down to the fact that Kay is Canadian - as he himself points out.Of course, as with any subject with political overtones, one's stance does shape at least some of how they view the situation, and Kay, for his part, just can't resist taking some pot shots, although to his credit he made it most of the way through the book before venting his spleen. The chapter on "Tin-foil mortarboards" is as much about his disdain for ivy league academics as anything, and seemed to me to be only tangentially related to the book's actual subject. As well, he seems to have a bit of the conspiracist in himself from time to time, as he seems to blame a wide variety of conspiracy theories on Marxism. This leads to a few howlers on his part as well, such as when he tries to lay some of the origins of 9/11 trutherism at the feet of Liberals. That said, he does do a very good job of staying pretty balanced, and profiles right wing loonbats with as much probing and precision as he brings to bear on the left wing variety. Literally, by the way - I read an electronic copy of this one, and a simple text search shows that words like "leftist", "Marxist," "conservative," and "right wing" all appear in roughly the same amounts throughout the text.No matter where you fall, you'll learn something from reading this book. I had watched "Collapse" with some interest, but hadn't realized what an outright crank Micheal Ruppert was , or what the hell the Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion was or what the big deal was about, until I read this book.All in all, totally worth the price of purchase, and a book I look forward to reading again in the future.
review 2: I gave Jonathan Kay’s Among the Truthers the full boat because his brilliant readability kept me riveted throughout. He carefully describes the saga of the modern evolution of conspiracy theory, searching for its roots, the reasons why Truthers are so unequivocally convinced of their infallibility in the face of all rational discussion, all the while he maintains a professional journalistic detachment and admirable even-handedness.This book stays with you; every day now I see examples of how conspiracism pervades all facets of our life – racial issues, feminism, political correctness, religion, politics, yes even the hallowed halls of academia, you name it, it’s kind of a new elephant in the room.But even though I cannot see the world the same way anymore, I’m grateful to him for writing it. It’s an unpopular message and he probably won’t get rich from it (as Kay wryly observes, a wise old NY publisher warned him he wouldn’t make much money from this book) evidently people would rather read some juicy tommyrot theory totally unsupported by any sort of informed data.But I am grateful that he stood up to the plate if only because too many of my friends have disappeared “down the rabbit-hole” (Kay’s phrase) of conspiracism never again to dwell in the rational world. Now is certainly a propitious moment in history for a journalist of stature to point out that the peddling of theoretical twaddle in these twitchy times is at least as reprehensible as the usual transgressions for which we hold society accountable. less

Download links for: Among the Truthers: A Journey Through America's Growing Conspiracist Underground

Advertising