American Conspiracism An Interdisciplinary Exploration

This important collection explores the social effects of popular American conspiratorial beliefs, featuring the work of 22 scholars representing multiple academic disciplines.

This book aims to better understand the phenomenon of American conspiracism by investigating how people acquire their beliefs, how conspiratorial stories function in politics and society, the role of conspiracy theories in the formation of national identities, and what conspiratorial beliefs mean to individual believers. Topics include QAnon, the Boogaloo Boys, the satanic panic, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Assassination, the Great Replacement Theory, anti-Catholic nativism, Flat Earth belief, Elvis Lives, COVID-19 denial, and much more. Each essay is accessibly and engagingly written without compromising quality.

American Conspiracism is essential reading for students of psychology, political science, and U.S. history, as well as journalists, independent researchers, and anyone interested in American conspiracies.

1. Reflections on the American Conspiracism Part I: Knowledge 2. The Epistemology of QAnon 3. The Devil in the Details: The Memory Wars, Trauma Studies, and the Satanic Panic 4. Viral Belief: The Psychology of COVID Conspiracy Theories 5. True Conspiracies: The Legacy of J. Edgar Hoover, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and James Earl Ray Part II: Function 6. Interpersonal Relationships and Online Social Support in the QAnon Age 7. Social Vigilantism and American Conspiratorial Beliefs 8. Taking Conspiracies to Extremes: How Extremist Groups Use Conspiracy Narratives to Stoke Violence 9. Good Conspiracism Part III: Nation 10. Nativism and the Roman Catholic Plot to Destroy America 11. Ku Klux Konspiracism in the 1920s 12. Constitutional Conspiracism: Aryans, Alpha Chads, and White Nationalists 13. Of Borders and Disorders: The U.S.-Mexico Border in the Trump Era Part IV: Meaning 14. Grievance Tales: On the Affective Resonance of “Crazy” Beliefs 15. American Flat Earth Belief 16. Long Live the King: Reviving an American Icarus

Luke Ritter, Ph.D., is Associate Professor in the Department of History and Political Science, New Mexico Highlands University, USA. He is the author of Inventing America’s First Immigration Crisis: Political Nativism in the Antebellum West (2021).