I have been doing a lot of thinking and writing about conspiracy theory, and it’s all Carl Trueman’s fault. I got an advance copy of his forthcoming book The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self and enjoyed it so much that I decided to go back and read some of his other books. Next on my list was Histories and Fallacies, which concerns historical method. His thoughts on Holocast Denial sparked some questions about conspiracy theory, and from there …

Irecently pointed out that new conspiracy theories tend to arise around shifts in power and that they often originate from those who have lost power or seen their power threatened. As you worked your way through that article, I wonder if you noticed that I didn’t define “conspiracy theory,” something that, in retrospect, may have been unwise. Nevertheless, I deliberately left it undefined because I wanted to demonstrate that we all have a working definition of the term. Perhaps it …