Conspiracy theories are everywhere in postwar American culture. But, where they once served to bolster a sense of identity by imagining the personal and national immune system under threat from a convenient scapegoat, in recent decades Cold War paranoia has been replaced by an increasing insecurity about exactly who or what the enemy is. Conspiracy Culture argues that talk of conspiracy is no longer necessarily the sign of a crackpot delusion, but is an everyday part of our political and cultural life, giving voice to an infinite regress of suspicion about identity, causality and agency.

Conspiracy theories are everywhere in post-war American culture. From postmodern novels to The X-Files and from gangsta rap to feminist polemic, there is a widespread suspicion that sinister forces are conspiring to take control of our national destiny, our minds, and even our bodies. Conspiracy explanations can no longer be dismissed as the paranoid delusions of far-right crackpots. Indeed, they have become a necessary response to a risky and increasingly globalized world, in which everything is connected but nothing adds up.
Peter Knight provides an engaging and cogent analysis...