by OpLan » Mon Jun 12, 2006 10:06 am
heres an expensive book I've been dreaming of maybe one day owning myself..only covers the last 230 years in America<br><br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.art.man.ac.uk/english/staff/pk/research/Encyclopedia/outline.html" target="top">Conspiracy Theories in American History: An Encyclopedia</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><br>.."is a two-volume, 500,000-word illustrated reference work to be published by ABC-CLIO in 2004. The encyclopedia is a scholarly survey of the history and present of political conspiracy theories in the USA, and is largely intended for college, community college, academic high school, government and municipal libraries"<br><br>"The realm of conspiracy theory has exploded since the 1960s, not least with Watergate and the other revelations of institutional conspiracy that emerged in the 1970s and 80s. In recent years many books have appeared on conspiracy theories. These often take the form of mass-market paperback compendia of (in the title of one of these collections) “the greatest conspiracies all time,” which aim to cash in on the seemingly insatiable public demand for sensationalistic rehashings of the same cluster of contemporary conspiracy theories. There have also been countless popular works of conspiratorial revelation which are often unduly credulous, on topics such as the Kennedy assassination and alien invasion. Opposing this tide of work (which encompasses both fringe publications and respectable investigative journalism), there have been a raft of debunkings of conspiracy theories by skeptics. There have also been half a dozen or so academic books in the last decade on the topic, but generally these also only deal with the contemporary period, and are mainly confined to delineating and explaining the popularity of conspiracy thinking in recent culture. So far there has been no comprehensive, scholarly treatment of the subject from the colonial period to the present. <br>The “Encyclopedia of American Conspiracy Theories” will bring together this wide range of writing, and offer a clear and well-referenced path through the often murky waters of speculation and rumor. In addition to presenting both a sober explication of contemporary conspiracy theories and summaries of the differing explanations for their appeal, it will also contain a broad range of topics from the whole span of American history. It will primarily concentrate on American topics, but will also include important items from the wider international scene (such as the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”) which have captured American public attention, or have impinged on US history. Reflecting popular usage, the encyclopedia will use a wide definition of “conspiracy theory” to encompass both suspicions which are almost certainly true and those which are almost certainly false. All contributions will be written by established academics, graduate students working within the field, or journalists with particular expertise on selected topics."<br><br><br>heres the 'Board of Advisors'<br><br>David Brion Davis <br>Sterling Professor of History, Yale <br><br>Gordon S. Wood <br>Alva O. Way University Professor and Professor of History, Brown University <br><br>Richard King <br>Professor of History, University of Nottingham, UK <br><br>Berndt Ostendorf <br>Professor of American Studies, University of Munich <br><br>Douglas Kellner <br>George F. Kneller Philosophy of Education Chair in Social Sciences Comparative Education, UCLA <br><br>If anyone has this book..do you think it is worth the asking price?(around $180) <p></p><i></i>
