Explores how a conspiracy culture has developed in post-war America from the 1960s countercultural suspicions about the authorities to the 1990s, where a paranoid attitude is viewed as both normal and ironic. Knight (American studies, U. of Manchester) analyzes conspiracy narratives about familiar topics like the Kennedy assassination, alien abduction, body horror, AIDS, crack cocaine, the New World Order, as well as the less usual ones like conspiracies of patriarchy and white supremacy. He investigates the way this distrust is manifested in the rhetoric of the feminist movement, the lyrics of gangsta rap, as well as in political movements, the entertainment industry and everyday life. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)