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This study investigates the long history of American conspiracy theories through literary and cultural studies, focusing on the period before 1960. It includes four detailed case studies: the Salem witchcraft crisis of 1692, fears of Catholic invasion from the 1830s to 1850s, antebellum conspiracy theories about slavery, and anxieties regarding Communist subversion in the 1950s. The analysis primarily engages with factual texts, including sermons, pamphlets, political speeches, and confessional narratives, while also examining how these fears were depicted in fiction, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown and Hermann Melville's Benito Cereno. The book presents three key insights: first, the American inclination toward conspiracy theorizing is rooted in a specific epistemological paradigm linking effects to intentional human action, alongside the ideologies of republicanism and Puritan heritage. Second, conspiracy theories were once seen as legitimate knowledge, influencing how Americans, both elite and common, understood historical events, with the Revolutionary and Civil Wars significantly shaped by such theories. Lastly, contrary to the prevailing view, conspiracy theories were never as marginal as suggested; their stigmatization as illegitimate knowledge began around 1960, coinciding with a shift from identifying conspiracies against the government to recognizing those orchestrated by it.
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Plots, designs, and schemes, Michael Butter
- Langue
- Année de publication
- 2014
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