Kathryn S. Olmsted. Real enemies: conspiracy theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11

In 1963, historian Richard Hofstadter donned the clinician's white coat to describe conspiracy theorists and a "paranoid style of American politics" given to exaggeration, distortion, and fantastical thinking. If still the favorite of journalists, Hofstadter's ideas have been significantly revised in the last decade by scholars from diverse disciplines. Their studies have placed conspiracy theorists in a broader frame by considering the institutional, cultural, and technological means that have made conspiracy thinking a mainstream phenomenon. These scholars have suggested that elites in government and the media join countersubversives to teach citizens to fear conspiracy.