Book picks similar to
Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare by Michael A. Hoffman II
psychology
conspiracy
non-fiction
history
The Conscience of a Conservative
Barry M. Goldwater - 1960
Written at the height of the Cold War and in the wake of America's greatest experiment with big government, the New Deal, Goldwater's message was not only remarkable, but radical. He argued for the value and importance of conservative principles--freedom, foremost among them--in contemporary political life. Using the principles he espoused in this concise but powerful book, Goldwater fundamentally altered the political landscape of his day--and ours.
Suspicious Minds: Why We Believe Conspiracy Theories
Rob Brotherton - 2015
We're all conspiracy theorists--some of us just hide it better than others.Conspiracy theorists aren't just a handful of people who wear tin-foil hats and have bizarre ideas about shape-shifting reptilian aliens. Conspiracy theories are as likely to appeal to women as to men, college students as to retired professors, middle-class bloggers as to blue-collar workers.Psychological research sheds light on why some people are more drawn to conspiracy thinking, especially when they feel discontented, distrustful, and desire privileged knowledge. But ultimately we are all natural-born conspiracy theorists. Our brains are wired to see patterns and to weave unrelated data points into complex stories. We instinctively see events in the world in terms of human motives and intentions, leading us to discount the role of chance and unintended consequences, and we look for some hidden hand behind catastrophic events. These psychological quirks can lead us to suspect a conspiracy where none exists.Conspiracy theories have existed throughout history, from ancient Athens and Rome to present day theories about 9/11 and who shot JFK. Suspicious Minds explores the phenomenon and reveals the important consequences conspiracy theories can have--from discouraging parents from vaccinating their children against deadly diseases to hampering political policies to combat climate change.
The Orphan Conspiracies: 29 Conspiracy Theories from The Orphan Trilogy
James Morcan - 2014
Takaaki Musha and an afterword by renowned historian Professor Richard Spence, contains hard-to-find knowledge. This non-fiction book is based on the political, scientific and financial insights in the Morcans' bestselling international thriller series The Orphan Trilogy (novels that merge fact with fiction by incorporating real-world theories on public figures and major organizations). Now the authors provide detailed analysis for each one of those controversial theories.In many ways, this exhaustively-researched work is the secret history of the 20th and 21st Centuries. But more than a history, it reveals what is happening right now behind the scenes - in underground bunkers, in the corridors of power, in prime banks and meetings of the world's elite.The Morcans connect the dots between many nefarious events in recent times and strip away the seemingly infinite classified layers of governments and intelligence agencies. Shockingly, they expose a splinter civilization operating in our midst that has at its disposal extraordinary suppressed technologies, unlimited resources and enormous black budgets - all inadvertently financed by everyday taxpayers.Garnering evidence from court cases, declassified government files and mainstream media reports, the authors disclose little-known facts on a wide range of topics. Diverse subjects such as mind control, eugenics, false flag operations, The Queen's hidden assets, secret prisons, The Catcher in the Rye enigma, political assassinations, medical cover-ups, genius learning techniques, Yamashita's Gold, the Jonestown mystery, Americanized Nazis, the bankrupting of Third World nations, underground bases, the US Federal Reserve, the New World Order, forbidden science, the War on Drugs, subliminal messages and even extraterrestrials.The criminals caught like deer in the headlights of these whistleblowing revelations include corrupt officials, racists, secret society members, warmongers, compromised journalists, economic hitmen, modern-day Doctor Frankensteins and mysterious individuals rumored to have wealth that would dwarf the net worth of Bill Gates and others on Forbes' so-called Rich Lists.Written from multiple perspectives; at times giving voice to conspiracy theorists; on other occasions siding with sceptics; vacillating between serious investigative writing and tongue-in-cheek, self-deprecating humor - The Orphan Conspiracies delivers a balanced exposé of some of the most important issues of our time.In their unflinching quest for truth and justice, the Morcans take no prisoners as they 'subpoena' the global elite - be they banksters, US Presidents, British Royals, Big Pharma, the Vatican, the FBI, the CIA, the Military Industrial Complex or the founders and CEO's of multinational corporations like Facebook, Shell, Google, BP and Microsoft. No suspicious individual or organization is granted immunity in this no-holds-barred trial conducted on behalf of The People.Go beyond rumors and conspiracy theories to documented facts and confirmed reality and find out just how deep the rabbit hole goes...
Babylon's Banksters: The Alchemy of Deep Physics, High Finance and Ancient Religion
Joseph P. Farrell - 2010
Farrell outlines the consistent pattern and strategy of bankers in ancient and modern times, and their desire to suppress the public development of alternative physics and energy technologies, usurp the money creating and issuing power of the state, and substitute a facsimile of money-as-debt. Here, Farrell peels back the layers of deception to reveal the possible deep physics that the “banksters” have used to aid them in their financial policies.Feral House also published Farrell’s Philosopher’s Stone: Alchemy and the Secret Research for Exotic Matter.
The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita - 2011
They start from a single assertion: Leaders do whatever keeps them in power. They don’t care about the “national interest”—or even their subjects—unless they have to. This clever and accessible book shows that the difference between tyrants and democrats is just a convenient fiction. Governments do not differ in kind but only in the number of essential supporters, or backs that need scratching. The size of this group determines almost everything about politics: what leaders can get away with, and the quality of life or misery under them. The picture the authors paint is not pretty. But it just may be the truth, which is a good starting point for anyone seeking to improve human governance.
Power over People: Classical and Modern Political Theory
Dennis Dalton - 1991
The issues Professor Dalton addresses in these lectures - and in Western political theory generally - fall into three sets of fundamental questions you'll get to unpack. The first set involves the essential characteristics of human nature and the good society. The second focuses on the intricate relationship between the individual and society. And the final set of questions involves theories about change.Through these lectures and their historical case studies, you'll be able to identify the fundamental questions and concerns that shape classical and modern political theory:Describe the influence of one's understanding of human nature upon one's vision of the good society.Compare and contrast the views of theorists regarding the purpose of the state, the relationship between politics and ethics, and the qualifications for exercising political power.Discuss views of leading political theorists regarding the meaning of freedom, the sources of legitimate political authority, and the obligations of individuals to the state or society, and more.
Evil: A Primer: A History of a Bad Idea from Beelzebub to Bin Laden
William Hart - 2004
Bush, September 11th 2001 Evil! Like a zombie back from the grave, it has arisen--a word many of us had long ago relegated to Sunday sermons, video games and horror flicks. But of course, evil is not old fashioned, nor has it ever gone away, and may be as robust as ever. So what is evil? Does it exist? Veteran journalist Bill Hart tries to drag evil out of the darkness and hold it up to the light. In doing so, he has written a very readable account of 5,000 years of philosophy, theology and human history as it reflects and refines its notion of evil. More than an explanation of why bad things happen, "Evil: A Primer" is a tour through the nether regions in search of what we really know.
The Looting Machine: Warlords, Oligarchs, Corporations, Smugglers, and the Theft of Africa's Wealth
Tom Burgis - 2015
During the years when Brazil, India, China and the other “emerging markets” have transformed their economies, Africa's resource states remained tethered to the bottom of the industrial supply chain. While Africa accounts for about 30 per cent of the world's reserves of hydrocarbons and minerals and 14 per cent of the world's population, its share of global manufacturing stood in 2011 exactly where it stood in 2000: at 1 percent.In his first book, The Looting Machine, Tom Burgis exposes the truth about the African development miracle: for the resource states, it's a mirage. The oil, copper, diamonds, gold and coltan deposits attract a global network of traders, bankers, corporate extractors and investors who combine with venal political cabals to loot the states' value. And the vagaries of resource-dependent economies could pitch Africa's new middle class back into destitution just as quickly as they climbed out of it. The ground beneath their feet is as precarious as a Congolese mine shaft; their prosperity could spill away like crude from a busted pipeline.This catastrophic social disintegration is not merely a continuation of Africa's past as a colonial victim. The looting now is accelerating as never before. As global demand for Africa's resources rises, a handful of Africans are becoming legitimately rich but the vast majority, like the continent as a whole, is being fleeced. Outsiders tend to think of Africa as a great drain of philanthropy. But look more closely at the resource industry and the relationship between Africa and the rest of the world looks rather different. In 2010, fuel and mineral exports from Africa were worth 333 billion, more than seven times the value of the aid that went in the opposite direction. But who received the money? For every Frenchwoman who dies in childbirth, 100 die in Niger alone, the former French colony whose uranium fuels France's nuclear reactors. In petro-states like Angola three-quarters of government revenue comes from oil. The government is not funded by the people, and as result it is not beholden to them. A score of African countries whose economies depend on resources are rentier states; their people are largely serfs. The resource curse is not merely some unfortunate economic phenomenon, the product of an intangible force. What is happening in Africa's resource states is systematic looting. Like its victims, its beneficiaries have names.
False Black Power? (New Threats to Freedom Series)
Jason L. Riley - 2017
In False Black Power?, Jason L. Riley takes an honest, factual look at why increased black political power has not paid off in the ways that civil rights leadership has promised.
Recent decades have witnessed a proliferation of black elected officials, culminating in the historic presidency of Barack Obama. However, racial gaps in employment, income, homeownership, academic achievement, and other measures not only continue but in some cases have even widened. While other racial and ethnic groups in America have made economic advancement a priority, the focus on political capital for blacks has been a disadvantage, blocking them from the fiscal capital that helped power upward mobility among other groups.
Riley explains why the political strategy of civil rights leaders has left so many blacks behind. The key to black economic advancement today is overcoming cultural handicaps, not attaining more political power. The book closes with thoughtful responses from key thought leaders Glenn Loury and John McWhorter.
Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?
Graham Allison - 2017
The reason is Thucydides’s Trap, a deadly pattern of structural stress that results when a rising power challenges a ruling one. This phenomenon is as old as history itself. About the Peloponnesian War that devastated ancient Greece, the historian Thucydides explained: “It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable.” Over the past 500 years, these conditions have occurred sixteen times. War broke out in twelve of them. Today, as an unstoppable China approaches an immovable America and both Xi Jinping and Donald Trump promise to make their countries “great again,” the seventeenth case looks grim. Unless China is willing to scale back its ambitions or Washington can accept becoming number two in the Pacific, a trade conflict, cyberattack, or accident at sea could soon escalate into all-out war. In Destined for War, the eminent Harvard scholar Graham Allison explains why Thucydides’s Trap is the best lens for understanding U.S.-China relations in the twenty-first century. Through uncanny historical parallels and war scenarios, he shows how close we are to the unthinkable. Yet, stressing that war is not inevitable, Allison also reveals how clashing powers have kept the peace in the past — and what painful steps the United States and China must take to avoid disaster today.
The Art of War
Niccolò Machiavelli
The Art of War is far from an anachronism—its pages outline fundamental questions that theorists of war continue to examine today, making it essential reading for any student of military history, strategy, or theory. Machiavelli believed The Art of War to be his most important work.
Them: Adventures with Extremists
Jon Ronson - 2001
In Them, journalist Jon Ronson has joined the extremists to track down the fabled secret room.As a journalist and a Jew, Ronson was often considered one of "Them" but he had no idea if their meetings actually took place. Was he just not invited? Them takes us across three continents and into the secret room. Along the way he meets Omar Bakri Mohammed, considered one of the most dangerous men in Great Britain, PR-savvy Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard Thom Robb, and the survivors of Ruby Ridge. He is chased by men in dark glasses and unmasked as a Jew in the middle of a Jihad training camp. In the forests of northern California he even witnesses CEOs and leading politicians -- like Dick Cheney and George Bush -- undertake a bizarre owl ritual.Ronson's investigations, by turns creepy and comical, reveal some alarming things about the looking-glass world of "us" and "them." Them is a deep and fascinating look at the lives and minds of extremists. Are the extremists onto something? Or is Jon Ronson becoming one of them?
Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass
Theodore Dalrymple - 2001
Theodore Dalrymple, a British psychiatrist who treats the poor in a slum hospital and a prison in England, has seemingly seen it all. Yet in listening to and observing his patients, he is continually astonished by the latest twist of depravity that exceeds even his own considerable experience. Dalrymple's key insight in Life at the Bottom is that long-term poverty is caused not by economics but by a dysfunctional set of values, one that is continually reinforced by an elite culture searching for victims. This culture persuades those at the bottom that they have no responsibility for their actions and are not the molders of their own lives. Drawn from the pages of the cutting-edge political and cultural quarterly City Journal, Dalrymple's book draws upon scores of eye-opening, true-life vignettes that are by turns hilariously funny, chillingly horrifying, and all too revealing-sometimes all at once. And Dalrymple writes in prose that transcends journalism and achieves the quality of literature.
Oklahoma City: What the Investigation Missed--and Why It Still Matters
Andrew Gumbel - 2012
He parked, hopped out of the truck, and walked away. Shortly after 9:00 a.m., the bomb obliterated one-third of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 people, including 19 infants and toddlers.Weaving together key elements of personal correspondence with co-defendant Terry Nichols, hundreds of hours of interviews, and thousands of government documents, Oklahoma City: What the Investigation Missed—and Why It Still Matters by investigative reporter Andrew Gumbel and retired U.S. Marine Corps lieutenant colonel Roger G. Charles is a riveting piece of journalism and a cautionary tale for our times.