_______'Timely and troubling' Evening Standard'A necessary book' David Aaronovitch'Frequently
jaw-dropping' Huffington PostFrom UFOs to the New World Order the inside story of how
conspiracy theories won over America.In November 2017 a serial climate change denier and
anti-vaxxer was elected President of the United States. The rise of Donald Trump marked the
beginning of a new American epoch: the age of the conspiracy theorist. Now Anna Merlan goes
undercover in America's sprawling network of conspiracy theorists and uncovers their secrets.
She meets the UFOlogist who claims to have travelled to Mars with a young Barack Obama. She
chats with the 'pizzagate' truthers who think Washington D.C.'s favourite pizzeria is run by a
satanic paedophile ring. And she bumps into Alex Jones the YouTube impresario who thinks the
state is using chemical warfare to turn the population gay - and who happens to be on
first-name terms with the leader of the free world.Merlan reveals a world of innuendo and
propaganda lying just beneath the surface of US culture. It might just help explain the
political turmoil of our time._______'Through exhaustive research personal interviews and a
critical yet at times appropriately empathetic approach writer Anna Merlan has written a
captivating book that illuminates the landscape of conspiracy theories.' New York Magazine'An
entertaining taxonomy of toxic ideas' Herald'A rock-steady narrator with a ready command of
history nerves of steel and incisive social insights . . . We need a thousand of her or a
million.' The Nation
