How Conspiracy Theory Has Shaped Modern History

Voodoo Histories

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

**AS FEATURED ON HOAXED PODCAST** 
 
This definitive book delves into why so many people are ready to believe in conspiracy theories, and the damage it can cause. 
 
Voodoo Histories entertainingly demolishes the absurd and sinister conspiracy theories of the last 100 years, such as: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 Princess Diana's death?David Aaronovitch reveals not only why people are so ready to believe in these stories but also the dangers of this credulity. 
 
'This book leaves us in no doubt that arriving at the truth is a vital matter - at times a matter of life and death' Financial Times.

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

Superbly researched, wittily written and eminently sane

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Aaronovitch aims to do more than expose popular nonsense

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

Solid, well-researched and unexpectedly gripping

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

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.

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.

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.

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 *

David Aaronovitch

An affectionate and insightful account of 20th-century history that also amounts to a manifesto for the power of words – and belonging.

Compassionate and wise… An effervescent and essential writer.

David Aaronovitch is to be congratulated on his Le Carre like sleuthing into the deceits and self-delusions of his parents and their communist friends. He has produced a wise, funny and sometimes heart-breaking account of how otherwise good and nice people are capable of believing a load of total and utter b*ll*cks about the world, the class system and themselves. It is an invocation of a vanished tribe that is still relevant, alas, to the Britain of Jeremy Corbyn, Ken Livingstone and Owen Jones, I loved it.

Party Animals is an utterly engaging and truly humane story about fitting in, opting out, and finding meaning. Unflinchingly honest, it is by turns harrowing and hilarious. Not since Clive James's Falling Towards England has there been a memoir so clearly destined to become a classic in its own time.

David Aaronovitch has written a compelling account of the Communist mindset in post-war Britain: a superb mix of social history, Marxist philosophy and often painful family biography. It is a hugely revelatory insight into a lost world and its modern legacies.

A raw…extraordinary new memoir-cum-social history… Vivid and moving.

The extraordinarily gripping final section… elevates his book above similar memoirs by other children of party members… Tremendously frank, often moving.

A colourful, sentimental, damning and funny part-history, part-autobiography. That is, until an extraordinarily brutal final chapter… [that] reveals Party Animals to be more than just a revealing memoir, but, hopefully, Mr Aaronovitch’s catharsis.

Deeply personal… A clever and moving portrait of a strange, unexplored subculture, of dedicated self-education by desperately poor young men, of undoubtedly good causes adopted for the advancement of a wicked and dangerous purpose.

A rich and forensic examination, all the more uncomfortable for its honesty and the authoritative knowledge of Left-wing politics that Aaronovitch brings to it … Like Lorna Sage’s Bad Blood, this is a riveting autobiography that forces you to think about your own family history.

An uncommonly gripping book, not just as political or social history…but as an account of the lies that families tell themselves to survive.

An honest portrait of communist obsession… A stirring personal yet expansive history of the ideals his committed communist parents strived towards… Aaronovitch fuses his adolescent memories with historical landmarks in the communist way of life… A memoir’s reach is too narrow, a historical biography’s too vast. Party Animals is a smart and well-balanced mix.

In his closely observed memoir…Aaronovitch has concentrated both the tragedy and comedy of western communism into a family, his own… The description Aaronovitch gives of his family and of the Party community is rich, subtle and poignant… The best thing he has done.

Aaronovitch’s song of love and pain for the lost family of British communism.

By turns affectionate, brutal and hilarious.

A raw and perspicacious book [written] with the honesty and elan that readers of his Times column admire.

The book shows how deep the religious impulse is in human beings… His memoir is a salutary lesson in the human craving for a cause to believe in – and the wrong paths such a craving can take.

Party Animals is… a moving account of a tormented family, a tale of rigid disbelief and dishonesty that was sometimes domestic and sometimes spanned the globe.

In this fascinating memoir, Aaronovitch describes what it was like growing up in a family of Communists… It’s a witty, sad and extremely moving story.

David Aaronovitch tells the story of his upbringing in a fervently Communist household in a very engaging and witty style… An unusual blend of history and biography and it shows what can happen when personal and political life becomes entwined.

My Family and Other Communists

SHORTLISTED FOR THE SLIGHTLY FOXED BEST FIRST BIOGRAPHY AWARD 
 
David Aaronovitch grew up in Communist Great Britain – a Britain hidden from view for most, but for those on the inside it was a life filled with picket lines, militant trade unions, solidarity rallies for foreign Communists, the Red Army Choir, copies of the Daily Worker, all underpinned by a quiet love of the Soviet Union. 
 
In this idiosyncratic blend of memoir, history and biography, David Aaronovitch uncovers the story of his family’s life by picking through letters, diaries and secret service files, which in turn unleash vivid childhood memories of a lost and idealistic world. Party Animals is about personal life and political life becoming tragically intertwined, and one family’s search for meaning in the twentieth century.

David Aaronovitch

Praise for Party Animals

An affectionate and insightful account of 20th-century history that also amounts to a manifesto for the power of words – and belonging.

Compassionate and wise… An effervescent and essential writer.

David Aaronovitch is to be congratulated on his Le Carre like sleuthing into the deceits and self-delusions of his parents and their communist friends. He has produced a wise, funny and sometimes heart-breaking a ...

An affectionate and insightful account of 20th-century history that also amounts to a manifesto for the power of words – and belonging.

Compassionate and wise… An effervescent and essential writer.

David Aaronovitch is to be congratulated on his Le Carre like sleuthing into the deceits and self-delusions of his parents and their communist friends. He has produced a wise, funny and sometimes heart-breaking a ...

An affectionate and insightful account of 20th-century history that also amounts to a manifesto for the power of words – and belonging.

Compassionate and wise… An effervescent and essential writer.

David Aaronovitch is to be congratulated on his Le Carre like sleuthing into the deceits and self-delusions of his parents and their communist friends. He has produced a wise, funny and sometimes heart-breaking a ...

Books by David Aaronovitch

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter