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Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11. By Kathryn S. Olmsted. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. xiv, 320 pp. $29.95. isbn 978-0-19-518353-5.)
"Americans have a special relationship to conspiracy theory," Kathryn Olmsted, a professor of history at the University of California, points out in the introduction to her excellent new book, Real Enemies (p. 3). Indeed, as we know from the work of Richard Hofstadter and David Brion Davis, ever since the founding of the United States, numerous Americans from all walks of life have worried about the nation's susceptibility to conspiratorial subversion. Olmsted argues, however, that such fears underwent a "fundamental transformation" during the twentieth century, as conspiracy theorists became much less concerned "that alien forces were plotting to capture...