Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies: the Straight Scoop on Freemasons, the Illuminati, Skull and Bones, Black Helicopters, the New World Order, and many, many more

The lengthy title and subtitle of Arthur Goldwag's book, "Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies: The Straight Scoop on Freemasons, The Illuminati, Skull and Bones, Black Helicopters, The New World Order, and many, many more," belies the brevity with which he addresses most of the myriad subjects between the book's covers. It's true even a mildly avid researcher can find on the Internet or in a public library or well-stocked bookstore vast amounts of exhaustively detailed material devoted to each of the subjects Goldwag surveys in his book. This is the advantage, rather than disadvantage, of Goldwag's approach. Goldwag's book supplies only the tantalizing breadcrumbs. He leaves it for the reader to follow the trail if she's hungry to show more find more information on the matters that interest her, many of which she may never had known of before exploring Goldwag's work. Goldwag's writing is savvy, crisp and clean, often tongue-in-cheek, and he's not afraid to voice his personal opinion on some of the wackier Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies featured in his book. It's a quick, informative and entertaining read, which I believe is exactly what the author intended. show less

An excellent look at the many quirky, loony, and outright crazy theories espoused by people on all sides of the political spectrum. A great read if you're, like me, interested in the lunatic fringe of the world simply for the laughs their theories bring. Comes with a free aluminum foil deflector beanie!

Read in the early summer of 2024. This book tries to be an reference/encyclopædic account of a selection of "Cults, Conspiracies, & Secret Societies" but really just provides a few flashes of interesting stories. The organization of the book into three major silos may be an attempt to apply some understanding to these themes but falls apart as soon as it is implemented, with entries referencing other sections or relating to "see also." The introductions to each section are helpful in providing a scaffold to understand how the sections are organized, but the entries themselves are either rambling or sparse with useful information. The section on Freemasonry and related groups proves disappointing. A book you could read on a long flight, show more if SkyMall wasn't available. show less

The world would be a lot less annoying if more people realized that “secret societies” have always been a bunch of dudes being dorks. It would also be a lot less violent if secret societies stopped happening bc often they are bigoted and/or violent dorks.

If you find this kind of madness to be fun and interesting then you should get this book. If you don't then this won't change your mind.

This is effectively an encyclopaedia of madness with so many repeating themes that you might think no ever learns anything in this world.

Great fun apart from the bits were there are mass suicides, murders, prejudice and horror.

A great buy for any gullible relatives.

This was an interesting, if flawed book. It consists of articles covering many "cults," conspiracies, and secret societies. I had two major problems with the book: One, Goldwag doesn't always reference his sources, and when he does, he does so inconsistently. There are no footnotes, or even endnotes. Sometimes he references his sources directly in the text, but there are many articles where he doesn't cite sources at all. I understand that a lot of what he cited was from unconventional sources, due to the nature of his subjects, but I still wanted to know where the info was coming from. My second problem was that there was so much information presented, but the articles were so short on each group/theory, etc. The addition of cults show more seemed odd, in particular; while I could somewhat see grouping conspiracies and secret societies together, since a lot of conspiracies are about secret societies, the cults didn't seem that related. It could easily have been two, if not three, more comprehensive, informative books. Still an interesting read, especially the part about the conspiratorial mindset. I, for one, started to understand a lot of current conspiracy theory, ie. some of the more fringe beliefs about President Obama, in context with ideas that have been around longer. Worth a read if you're interested in the subject, but not a comprehensive look by any means. Three stars. show less

**.5

There is almost no insight, the book mostly reads like a brief summary of wikipedia articles, with the most prominent feature the birth and death dates of every person mentioned, at the expense of details that may have actually shed some light on the topic.
The only real commentary is the author's obvious disdain of 9/11 "truthers" which inspired him to write the book in the first place.

Although there are some interesting bits, I'm not really sure who the book is for, as there isn't enough depth to be a useful research tool, but there also isn't enough context for readers who aren't already familiar with the groups.

Rating rounded down for the bizarre fixation on Dan Brown's 2003 novel "The Da Vinci Code" which he mentions about 12 show more dozen times, each time noting the publication date 2003 as if that was somehow a crucial fact worth repeating again and again. show less