In Voodoo Histories the author, David Aaronovitch talks about some well-known conspiracy theories and how they have affected the way in which we think about things and what we regard as true. He takes each one and looks at it, debunks it with proper evidence including showing how the theory evolved and developed, and the tries to explain why it is so attractive for people to believe this. I found all of this fascinating although I still didn’t really understand at the end why so many people are eager to believe things which can easily be shown to be untrue. It is fair to say that I am a sceptic about all of the theories he includes in this book, as is the author.
Conspiracy theories covered include those around the death of Princess Diana, the death of Kennedy, the bombing of Pearl Harbour the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the theories about Jesus contained in The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail and The Da Vinci Code, the location of the birth of Barrack Obama, the theories of ancient aliens espoused by Erich Von Daniken, the death of Marilyn Monroe and the events that we now know as 9/11. There’s lots of detail about these and plenty of evidence to show that the conspiracy theories are unfounded and it is interesting to see this.
The author then talks about the reasons why people might believe these theories including a desire for a proper narrative that makes more sense than what actually happened, a need for events to have a reason rather than to be arbitrary, a distrust of authority, and a feeling of personal disempowerment which means that believing theories gives the holder special knowledge and importance.
I thought that this book was clear and full of information. I enjoyed reading it as the author has a down-to-earth style and isn’t afraid to say what he thinks about conspiracy theory thinking. I identified this as one of my non-fiction books of 2025 – you can see that list here.
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