Book of the week: Among the Truthers: A Journey Through America’s Growing Conspiracist Underground by Jonathan Kay

The Canadian newspaper columnist explains why Americans are increasingly willing to indulge in conspiracy theories about the government or about politicians they dislike.

(Harper, $28)

It’s amazing that Jonathan Kay “emerged with his sanity intact,” said Jacob Heilbrunn in The New York Times. After spending years immersed in the head-spinning world of “truthers,” “birthers,” and all manner of other conspiracy theorists, the conservative Canadian newspaper columnist has somehow managed to produce a thoughtful treatise on what drives so many people to believe that the 9/11 attacks may have been perpetrated by the U.S. government or that the president may be a secret Kenyan. Concerned about what he sees as a dangerous surge in paranoid thinking, Kay sought out many of the professors, journalists, and other self-styled whistle-blowers who have devoted time to researching and propagating theories about secretive cabals that manipulate world events. He’s returned with a warning: Examine your own ideological commitments—you may be more prone to joining the conspiracy thinkers than you’d expect.

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