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  • Published: 1 July 2010
  • ISBN: 9780099478966
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 416
  • RRP: $36.99

Voodoo Histories

The Sunday Times Bestseller featured on Hoaxed podcast




A stinging assault on the shocking, dotty and sinister world of modern conspiracy theories by the award-winning journalist David Aaronovitch.

Did Neil Armstrong really set foot on the moon?

Was the United States government responsible for the 11 September attacks?

Should we doubt the accidental nature of Diana's death?

Voodoo Histories entertainingly demolishes the absurd and sinister conspiracy theories of the last 100 years. Aaronovitch reveals not only why people are so ready to believe in these stories but also the dangers of this credulity.

*Includes a new chapter investigating the conspiracy theories that question Obama's legitimacy as president *

  • Published: 1 July 2010
  • ISBN: 9780099478966
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 416
  • RRP: $36.99

About the author

David Aaronovitch

David Aaronovitch is an award-winning journalist, who has worked in radio, television and newspapers in the United Kingdom since the early 1980s. He lives in Hampstead, north London, with his wife, three daughters and Kerry Blue the terrier. His first book, Paddling to Jerusalem, won the Madoc prize for travel literature in 2001 and his second, Voodoo Histories, was a Sunday Times top ten bestseller.

Also by David Aaronovitch

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Praise for Voodoo Histories

A handbook to be cherished by anyone who would rather have the unvarnished truth

Daily Mail

Brilliant, sparkling and witty

Ian Kershaw

Terrifying, hilarious, irreverent and addictively compelling... An instant classic

Simon Sebag-Montefiore

Superbly researched, wittily written and eminently sane

Andrew Roberts, Literary Review

Dazzling debunkery

Scotland on Sunday

Gloriously readable

Independent

Intelligent and hugely enjoyable... It is a serious inquiry into why conspiracy theories appeal, and aaronovitch's theories are consistently reasonable, persuasive and humane

Sunday Times

A rich and fascinating account.... His unravelling of the theories is a model of common sense and responsible reasoning

AC Grayling, The Times

This book leaves us in no doubt that arriving at the truth is a vital matter - at times a matter of life and death

John Lloyd, Financial Times

A useful book about an important subject

Giles Foden, Guardian

Anyone who has toyed with suspicion over the accidental nature of Princess Diana's death, or the self-inflicted nature of David Kelly's, will have that flirtation brutally curtailed by Aaronovitch's caustic rationality

Observer

With dark wit and extraordinary patience he lays bare the psychology of conspiracism

Nick Cohen

Voodoo Histories is as concerned with understanding conspiracies as it is with rebutting them, and Aaronovitch's tone throughout is that of the sage psychologist, his method that of the forensic historian

New Statesman

Fascinating

Lesley McDowell, Independent on Sunday

Admirably diligent

Rafael Behr, Observer

He is articulate, well-versed and a good writer; it's worth reading this whether you agree with him or not.

William Leith, Evening Standard

Fascinating account of the major conspiracy theories of the past 100 years

Lesley McDowell, Independent on Sunday

Aaronovitch aims to do more than expose popular nonsense

Rafael Behr, Observer

Aaronovitch aims to do more than expose popular nonsense

Rafael Behr, Observer

Forensically intelligent and hugely enjoyable study of modern conspiracy theories...consistently reasonable, persuasive and humane

Christopher Hart, Sunday Times

Solid, well-researched and unexpectedly gripping

Christopher Hirst, Independent

[Aaronovitch] is, broadly speaking, an enemy of conspiracy theories. He is also articulate, well versed in the facts and a good writer

William Leith, Scotsman

Aaronovitch painstakingly dissects these and some of the other great conspiracy theories of the age and demonstrates with merciless clarity what utter tripe they are.

Mail on Sunday

A serious, entertaining and shocking investigation into the stuff that conspiracy theories are made of. Aaronovitch guides us through the half-truths and speculation and examines the distrust of officialdom which fuels conspiracists' imagination.

Independent on Sunday