Book Review
Title: The Mammoth Book of Conspiracies by Jon E. Lewis
Genre: Non-Fiction, Conspiracy Theories
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Writing this review was a little difficult since it is just a collection of conspiracy theories with the author commenting on some of them and providing documentation for others. That being said, some of these “chapters” are long enough to comment on but others are extremely short. Due to this, I will be selecting a few to talk about throughout the collection and summing up my thoughts on the entire thing at the end. Early in the book, we get some of the classic conspiracy theories like Area 51, Big Brother and Osama Bin Laden which many people are going to know about, but the first that caught my attention as Aum Shinrikyo. Aum Shinrikyo is a Japanese cult that carried out biological attacks using sarin gas on the people of Japan, the conspiracy was that the group was planning to take over Japan, which was true, and they sought out several ways to assume more power.
The Fidel Castro chapter was amazing as it provides documentation to prove that the US, specifically, the CIA plotted and attempted to assassinate Fidel Castro several times and he survived every single one, although there were a few plans that never saw the light of day. The star is the document, which is a CIA Inspector General’s report on the assassination plots, which details the many plans that the CIA had, the ones the attempted to carry out and the ones they didn’t. Knowing now that this was proven to be fact technically doesn’t make it a conspiracy theory, but it was an interesting read. Another chapter that was extremely interesting but also proven to be fact was the one on the Ford Pinto. Essentially, Ford created the Pinto and found a huge design flaw that meant even at low-speed collisions the car would likely catch fire due to the positioning of the fuel tank. Although this flaw was brought to the executives, they decided that the payout from lawsuits would cost less than recalling and fixing the vehicles already in circulation. This means that they knowingly put profit ahead of the safety of their customers and faced severe backlash for it when it became public knowledge.
There are many chapters that focus on conspiracy theories surrounding a singular person like JFK, Michael Jackson, Jack the Ripper and Princess Diana which are all very well known by most people, so I am not going to discuss them. However, the author’s view on cases like the Ripper Murders were interesting and differ from my own theories on the case. Another chapter that I found interesting was the one on P2. P2 or Propagation Two was a Masonic Lodge tied to the Vatican Bank and while being investigated for money laundering, the leader was found and a plot to take over Italy was uncovered. This lodge was involved in the plotted takeover of the country as well as assassination of several key political figures and was funded by the Italian Mafia and the CIA.
The last one I am going to discuss in this review is the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. As the name suggests, this chapter focuses on a syphilis study that took place in Tuskegee in 1932 involving almost 400 black men. The study originally began to find a cure or treatment for syphilis, although the men involved thought they were being treated for “bad blood”. However, this dark undertones show through when penecillin became widely available in 1947 and was being used successfully to treat the disease. However, the researchers made the conscious decision to withhold the medication in favour of seeing what happened in the end stages of the disease leading to the unnecessary deaths of many involved. By 1966, the whistle was blown on the study when it was brought to the attention of the CDC who actually wanted to continue the study until all the participants were dead. In the end of the 399 men involved, only 74 survived with many wives and children also contracting the disease leading to massive payouts for them and in 1997 a ceremony was held to apologize by the White House.
Now, the Tuskegee study wasn’t the only medical experiment that results in unnecessary deaths but it was one of the first to take place outside the acts of war where researchers knowingly deprived people of life-saving medicines. Overall, the book was interesting and would recommend it to people who are interested in conspiracy theories but doesn’t know a lot of details about them. Since if you are like me and know a lot about conspiracy theories there will be whole sections where you already know everything the author is discussing and are only sticking around for the original documents included in the book.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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