A Global History of Lies: Rumors, Conspiracy Theories, and Hoaxes–Syllabus

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In this course we will start in the present and consider how a confluence of technological, economic, political and social forces has reshaped the contours and possibilities of misinformation and disinformation and their role in the development of rumors, conspiracy theories, and hoaxes.  We will then trace the arc of conspiratorial thinking and rumors from the European Wars of Religion to the era of Trump, Putin, Bolsonaro, Orban, and Erdogan. Our focus will be on Europe, the United States, and Latin America. 

The course addresses a set of related but distinct categories of untruth. In the course we will consider conspiracy theories, but also disinformation, misinformation, rumors, hoaxes, and scams. At various points, we will consider how these concepts often overlap. For example, a rumor can develop into a conspiracy theory. Likewise, disinformation campaigns often are launched after an actor perceives that

During the semester, we think about the following questions:

• What political, social, economic, and technological factors have aided in the proliferation of mis- and disinformation?
• How has the discipline of history been impacted by the proliferation of misinformation and disinformation about historical topics and themes? How, in other words, do we study the history of these issues while also engaging in a discipline under attack from false and falsified history?
• How do conspiracy theories travel across cultural and national contexts?
• What accounts for the long-lasting nature of certain conspiracy theories?
• Why do certain states elect to fabricate disinformation?
• How have certain actors in history worked to counteract dis- and misinformation?
• How should historians address the challenges of dis- and misinformation in the past?
• What do we learn by studying the history of conspiracy theories?
• How do we thread the common themes, the connections across national and regional frontiers? How do we understand, for example, the pervasive conspiracy theories about slave rebellions that cut across colonial and national frontiers of the Americas?
•  How do we study the global network of anti-communism conspiratorialism?
• How do left-wing and right-wing conspiracy theories compare?
• What do conspiracy theories about historical events have in common with conspiracy theories that focus on current day political issues or problems?

We approach our topic in a manner that considers both the global, the regional and national, and the local. A challenge of the course is to be keeping a variety of different scales of analysis active simultaneously. Wherever possible, we will read on a common theme from at least two different parts of the world. To date, there are no global studies of conspiracy theories. This class, then, is innovative but also will present challenges to student and instructor alike.

Ethical questions: This is a history course. It is not a sociology course. As such, students are discouraged to embark on projects involving interviews with subjects who may adhere to conspiracy theories. My reasons are the following. I’m not trained in oral interview techniques or ethics and cannot guide you adequately in the norms and standards. Many people who now subscribe to conspiracy theories advocate violence, and many subjects could pose a threat to you or the class. Our focus is historical, even if we are thinking about history from the present.

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Assignments:

Reflection Paper “How did we get here?  (5%) Two (2) pages double spaced. Reflect on the readings thus far in class. What are the major themes or problems on this topic that seem most important to you? What questions have emerged so far?

Document Analysis 4 x 5% (20%)  Four times during the semester, you will be asked to locate news stories (print or tv/film) that discuss a conspiracy theory, rumor, hoaxes, or misinformation that is RELEVANT to the class material for the day. Please upload the document to CANVAS and provide a two-paragraph analysis of the document. In the first paragraph, describe the source. The second and third paragraphs should provide an analysis of how the text in question relates to the day’s readings. Does it raise new questions not addressed in scholarly literature? Does the source betray a particular bias? Does it accept a rumor or conspiracy theory at face value or does the sources call the matter into question?

Students will upload the paper to Canvas and will present their findings during class.

 Locate your source via New York Times online (IC Library) or Library of Congress Chronicling America.

 If you wish to use non-US sources, please consult with me. There are digitized newspaper databases that cover a number of regions of the world. Many require knowledge of languages other than English!

Research Paper Proposal (10%) Grade based on 1 page proposal, at least two pages of primary and secondary sources, and a clear plan and methodology

See “Formulating a Research Question” in Research Module

Approaches to consider for the research paper:

1. Pick a time and or place that is rife with CTs and rumors. Revolutions, rebellions, slave societies, frontier points between diverse cultures or national groups, etc. are moments of high stress and anxiety. Such an approach would require a broad sweep of literature on the topic/period/place. Such periods may offer up a mix of actual conspiracies and conspiracy theories? How do we draw a distinction?

2. Analyze a specific text that has been instrumental in propagating a CT. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Mein Kampf, anti-communist books and booklets post 1945 US. Examples could include John Birch Society Pamphlets, John A. Stormer’s None Dare Call It Treason, and World Anti-Communist League publications. Such an approach would require a deep dive into a more discrete set of primary sources. Your analysis might be one of understanding the rhetorical strategies of such authors

3. Take a contemporary CT, such as Q-anon, and analyze its historical reference points/touchstones. Do its adherents/participants think about their ‘work’ historical? Do they have historical reference points? Do they refer to historical conspiracy theories? How do they use history to make their case?

4. Some conspiracy theories develop after the fact, or they stretch out from the present and continue forward in time. Who killed JFK? started immediately after the assassination. At some point, it became historical. What do such conspiracy theories about historical subjects offer the historian? How do we study them?

Research Paper or Outline Rough Draft (10%) I will provide you with an assessment of the project as it stands, suggestions for paths forward, and a general sense of where you are in the process of completing the project on time.

Research Presentation (10%)  Presentations occur near the end of the semester and a few weeks before the final research paper is due. The goal of the presentations is for students to try out ideas, share challenges or questions that they are facing, and receive constructive feedback that they can use to improve the final papers. Students often come away from their presentations with new insights and ideas about where to take their work. Students often pivot and shift focus. Sometimes the process of organizing the talk and/or sharing it verbally awakens in them ideas about how to shift. 

Final Research Paper (30%) Research Paper MUST demonstrate an engagement with relevant classroom materials, both readings and other material, and the themes of the course.

Mid Term Take Home Essay (10%)

Final Take Home Essay (10%)

Participation (10%)  Grade based on regular attendance, evidence of having done the reading (this may include using Canvas discussion systems), engagement with classmates’ ideas and questions, etc. Students who have poor attendance and participation will not have their grades bumped up if on the borderline. More generally, attendance is strongly correlated to good performance in assignments.

Attendance: The class cannot function without consistent attendance by everyone. Consistent does not mean perfect. To achieve that, and to encourage attendance, without punishing those who have genuine reasons to miss class, this is the policy. When you miss class FOR ANY REASON you must submit a one paragraph review of the day’s reading that includes a discussion question. 

If you want to learn more about my attitude towards attendance, please read my essay “My New Attendance Policy.” If you miss class, read this poem before you ask me “Did I Miss Anything.”

 Electronics in the Classroom: I’m tired of teaching students who are staring at laptops and phones. So, there will be no electronic devices. You will purchase a class reader. If I give a lecture, I will post a VoiceThread to Modules which you may review after class.

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Books (either assigned in entirety or several chapters)

Chang, Jason Oliver.  Chino: Anti-Chinese Racism in Mexico, 1880-1940 (University of Illinois Press,2017)

Cullather,  Nick. Secret History:The CIA’s Classified Account of its Own Operations in Guatemala, 1952-1954 (Stanford University Press 2006). 

Evans, R. J. The Hitler conspiracies. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020).

Finchelstein, Federico. A Brief History of Fascist Lies (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2020).

Merlan, Anna. Republic of Lies (New York: Macmillan, 2019).

Olmsted, K. SReal Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11 (10th anniversary edition.). (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019).

Onnerfors, Andreas and Andre Krouwel, Europe: Continent of Conspiracies (New York: Routledge, 2021).

Rid, Thomas.  Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare (New York: Picador, 2020).

Roniger, Luis and Leonardo Senkman, Conspiracy Theories and Latin American History: Lurking in the Shadows (New York: Routledge, 2022).

Walker, Jesse. The United States of Paranoia (New York: Harper Collins, 2014).

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SCHEDULE

Week One

Class introductions

Lecture: Mistakes I’ve Made or How I got Interested in the History of Conspiracy Theories

* Note: This is a draft of a paper that I’ve proposed for a special issue of The American Historical Review

Reading: Jim Kline, “C.C. Jung and Norman Cohn Explain Pizzagate: The Archetypal Dimension of a Conspiracy Theory,” Psychological Perspectives 60:2 (2017):186-195.

• My colleague, Psychology professor Hugh Stephenson, presented on psychological insights into conspiracy theories.

Additional Readings: Finn Cohen, “Darker Corners: Whitney Phillips on Conspiracy Theories, Social Media, and the Spread of Misinformation,” The Sun (November 2020) & Joseph Uscinski, “Why are Conspiracy Theories Popular? There’s More to it than Paranoia,” EUROPP: European Politics and Policy (2013); Robert Darnton, “The True History of Fake News,” NYRB (2013)

The Current problem

Lecture: Research Methods and Sources in Conspiracy Theories, Disinformation, Misinformation, etc.

Reading: One essay in Beyond Disinformation; Conspiracy theories about Critical Race Theory; Birds Aren’t Real (TED talk)

 AND read two news stories that capture some element of the contemporary crisis. Come to class ready to share.

 Watch in Class: Naomi Klein’s Doppelganger

Recommended: “The Conservative Dilemma” https://iddp.gwu.edu/conservative-dilemma

Week Two

Regional Comparisons: USA

Readings: ; Jesse Walker, “The Paranoid Style IS American Politics” in The United States of Paranoia (New York: Harper Collins, 2014); Ann Merlan, Republic of Lies (New York: Macmillan, 2019) (Prologue) and Olmsted, K. Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11 (10th anniversary edition.). (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019) , “Epilogue,” Real Enemies   

Regional Comparisons: Europe and Latin America

Lecture: “An Introduction to Latin American Conspiracy Theories”

Reading: Andreas Onnerfors and Andre Krouwel, “Between Internal Enemies and External Threats: How conspiracy theories have shaped Europe-an introduction” in Europe: Continent of Conspiracies (NY: Routledge 2021):1-16; Roniger and Senkman, “Introduction,” Conspiracy Theories and Latin American History: Lurking in the Shadows (New York: Routledge, 2022)

Reflection Paper Due IN CLASS How did we get here? (10%)

Week Three

Conspiracy Theories about Indigenous and Africans in the Americas

Reading: “Inventing an American Indian Rebellion” and JILL LEPORE about her book about Slave Conspiracies!

Questions to Consider: What scripts or archetypes does the “Enemy Outside” view of Native Americans play upon? Why did Europeans view Native Americans with such suspicion? In what ways was that suspicion well founded? And when and why did it cross into the fantastical? How does the author tie fear of Native Americans to fear of other Enemies Outside? What are some of the longer-range impacts of these foundational conspiracy theories for the United States?

Slave Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories about Enslaved People

Lecture: “Internal Foreigners: Indigenous and Africans: Colonial Latin American Conspiracy Theories and Rumors”

Reading: Jason T. Sharples, “Discovering Slave Conspiracies: New Fears of Rebellion and Old Paradigms of Plotting in Seventeenth Century Barbados” American Historical Review 120: 15 (June 2015)

Questions to Consider: What are the sources for this essay? How does the author navigate through the contradictory evidence? What does the conspiracy theory tell us about Barbados, the Caribbean, and the wider Anglophone world? What kinds of linkages develop in people’s minds? Why? How does this story compare with “Devil in the Wilderness?”

Suggested Readings: Aisha K. Finch, Rethinking Slave Rebellion: La Escalera and the Insurgencies of 1841-1844 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2015); Maria Elena Martinez, “The Black Blood of New Spain:  Limpieza de Sangre, Racial Violence, and. Gendered Power in Early Colonial Mexico” The William and Mary Quarterly; Wim Klooster, “Slave Revolts, Royal Justice, and a Ubiquitous Rumor in the Age of Revolutions,” The William and Mary Quarterly , Vol. 71, No. 3 (July 2014), pp. 401-424; Louisiana Slave Conspiracies

Week Four

French Revolution and Aftermath

Lecture: Background on Spanish American Wars of Independence

Reading: Timothy Tackett, “Conspiracy Obsession in a Time of Revolution: French Elites and the Origins of the Terror, 1789-1792,” American Historical Review 105:3 (2000)and “Intelligence” in Adam Zamoyski, Phantom Terror: Political Paranoia and the Creation of the Modern State, 1789-1848  (New York: Basic Books, 2015)

Additional ReadingsRobert Darnton, “An Early Information Society: News and Media in Eighteenth Century Paris,” American Historical Review 105:2 (2000); Peter R. Campbell, Conspiracy in the French Revolution (Manchester University Press, 2010)

Rumors during the Age of Revolution in the Americas

Readings: Wim Klooster, “Slave Revolts, Royal Justice, and a Ubiquitous Rumor in the Age of Revolutions” William and Mary Quarterly (July 2014); Eric Van Young, Chapter 14, “The Verbal Culture of Internal War: Loose Talk, Rumor, Sedition, and Propaganda.”  in The Other Rebellion: Popular Violence, Ideology, and the Mexican Struggle for Independence, 1810-1821 (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2002)

Week Five

Conspiracy Theories and Rumors about the Internal Enemy in the Era of Latin American Export Boom”

Readings Levine, Robert M. “‘Mud-Hut Jerusalem’: Canudos Revisited.” The Hispanic American Historical Review 68, no. 3 (1988): 525–72.; Louis A. Perez, Jr. “Peasants and People of Color: The 1912 “Race War” in Cuba Reconsidered,” Hispanic American Historical Review 66:3 (August 1986): 509-539.

Additional Readings: Todd Diacon, Millenarian Vision, Capitalist Reality: Brazil’s Contestado Rebellion, 1912-1916Duke University Press 1991;  Hal Langfur  Adrift on an Inland Sea : Misinformation and the Limits of Empire in the Brazilian Backlands. (1st ed.). (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2023).

A Vast Federal Conspiracy!

Reading: Olmsted, Chapter 1 “The Consent of the People: Presidential Secrecy and the First World War” in Real Enemies

 Pre-Twentieth Century Essay Due in Class (10%)

Week Six

Red Scares in the United States

Readings: Palmer Raids and Adam Hochschild, “All-American Vigilantes,” NYRB  

Document Analysis #1 Due in Class

Anarchists, Syndicalists, and Communists in Interwar Latin America

Lecture: “Foreigners in Latin America: Jews, Arabs, Chinese and Japanese”

Readings: Jonathan Ablard, “Counterrevolution without Revolutionaries: Conspiracy in the Argentine Barracks, 1919-1930” A Contracorriente  17: 3 (Spring 2020):  ; Roniger and Senkman, “The Tragic Week in Argentina: the conspiracy myth of Judeo-Russian ‘maximalism,’” “The political uses of a conspiratorial gaze in Chile, 1918-1920,” and “An imagined Jewish-Communist threat and Nazi conspiracies in Vargas’ Brazil,” in Conspiracy Theories and Latin American History: Lurking in the Shadows  

Week Seven

Race “riots” and Lynching in the American South and the Dominican Republic

Readings: Lauren H. Derby. The Dictator’s Seduction: Politics and the Popular Imagination in the Era of Trujillo. (Duke University Press, 2009).

Roniger and Senkman, “A massacre in the Dominican Republic and the fabled theory of a Haitian menace,” and “Racist Propaganda in the US and anti-black violence”

Document Analysis #2 Due

Mexico and Anti-Chinese Violence

Jason Oliver Chang, Chino: Anti-Chinese Racism in Mexico, 1880-1940 (University of Illinois Press, 2017)

Week Eight   

The Judeo-Bolshevik Conspiracy Theory in Interwar Europe

“Transnational Culture War: Christianity, Nation, and the Judeo-Bolshevik Myth in Hungary, 1890-1920,” Journal of Modern History 80, no. 1 (March 2008): 55-80.

Additional reading; Bela Bodo, “The Toszegi Affair: Rumors, ‘the people’s verdict,’ and rural antisemitism,” Yad Vashem

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

Norman Cohn, Warrant for Genocide: The Myth of the Jewish World-Conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (New York and Evaston, Harper and Row, 1967); Richard Evans, “Were the Protocols a ‘Warrant for Genocide’?” The Hitler Conspiracies (NY: Oxford University Press, 2023)

Week Nine

Fascism, Conspiracy Theories, and Lying

Federico Finchelstein, A Brief History of Fascist Lies (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2020)

Suggested Readings: Herbert Southworth, Conspiracy and the Spanish Civil War: The Brainwashing of Francisco Franco (New York: Taylor Francis, 2014); Rubem Serem, A Laboratory of Terror: Conspiracy, Coup d’état and Civil War in Seville, 1936-1939: History and Myth in Francoist Spain (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2017)

Hitler Conspiracy Theories in Global Perspective

Evans, “Did Hitler escape the bunker?” in The Hitler Conspiracies and Roniger and Senkman, “The Fourth Reich in Argentina” in Conspiracy Theories in Latin American History 

Research Paper Proposal (10%)

Week Ten

World War Two and the American Conspiratorial Tradition

Olmstead, Chapter 2, “Lying us into War? The Second Battle of Pearl Harbor” in Real Enemies  

Suggested Reading: Howard W. Odum, Race and Rumors of Race: The American South in the Early Forties (JHU 1997 [1943]); Masayo Umezawa Duus,The Japanese Conspiracy: The Oahu Sugar Strike of 1920 (Stanford University Press, 1999); Brian Walsh, The “Rape” of Japan: The Myth of Mass Sexual Violence during the Allied Occupation (Washington, D.C.: US Naval Institute, 2024)

 McCarthyism to the JFK Assassination 

Olmstead, Chapters 3 and 4, “Masters of Deceit: Red Spies and Red Hunters in the McCarthy Era,”  and “The Dealy Plaza Irregulars: The JFK Assassination and the Collapse of Trust in the 1960s.” in Real Enemies

 Primary Source Analysis #3

Week Eleven

Watergate and Beyond

Olmstead, Chapter 5 “White House of Horrors: Nixon Watergate, and the Secret Government” and Chapter 6 “Trust No One: Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories from the 1970s to the 1990s.” in Real Enemies  

The Cold War, and Medicine

Readings: Mayone Stycos, “Opposition to Family Planning in Latin America: Conservative Nationalism” Demography (1968);  Lessons From Operation “Denver,” the KGB’s Massive AIDS Disinformation Campaign; Thomas Rid, “AIDS Made in the USA” in Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare (Picador, 2020);

Additional Readings:  Vanessa Freije, “Speaking of Sterilization: Rumors, the Urban Poor, and the Public Sphere in Greater Mexico City,” Hispanic American Historical Review & Susan Reverby,  “Normal Exposure” and Inoculation Syphilis: A PHS “Tuskegee” Doctor in Guatemala, 1946-1948. Journal of Policy History 23:1, 2011, pp. 6-28

Week Twelve

Latin America in the Cold War: The Communist and Gringo Threat

Roniger and Senkman, Chapter 7, “Geopolitics, intrigues, and conspiracy theories,” (Topics include: dependency theory, Cuban Revolution, and Allende’s Chile) Conspiracy Theories and Latin American History

Latin America in the Cold War: The Communist and Gringo Threat

Tanya Harmer,  Allende and the Inter-American Cold War (The University of North Carolina Press, 2014); Jules Dubois, Operation America: Beyond Cuba – The Inside Story of the Communist Plan to Subvert Latin America, ( New York, 1963)

Week Thirteen

US Conspiracy in Cold War Latin America

Nick Cullather, Secret History: The CIA’s Classified Account of its Own Operations in Guatemala, 1952-1954 (Stanford University Press, 2006). 

Primary Source Analysis #4 Due

Active Measures and Disinformation Campaigns

Thomas Rid, Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare (New York: Picador, 2020)

Week Fourteen

From 9/11 to January 6th

Olmstead, “Cabal of Soccer Moms: 9/11 and the Culture of Deceit,” “Conclusion,” and “Epilogue: Conspiracy Theories Are For…Winners?: The 2016 Election and its Aftermath.” in Real Enemies  

Lessons from COVID

Knight, P., & Butter, M. (Eds.). (2023). Covid Conspiracy Theories in Global Perspective. Routledge; Ceron, W., Gruszynski Sanseverino, G., de-Lima-Santos, M.-F., & Quiles, M. G. (2021). COVID-19 fake news diffusion across Latin America. Social Network Analysis and Mining, 11(1), 47.

Week Fifteen

Connecting the Dots

Students will present drafts of their papers in a 10-15 presentation. In addition to discussing strengths and areas in need of further work, we will talk through the larger lessons of the course in relationship to the questions posed at the beginning of the syllabus.

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Note on Guest Speakers:

Every semester is different, but I try to bring in as many guest speakers as possible to the class. Guests bring in new perspectives and areas of expertise that I do not possess. Thanks to Zoom, I can have guests from all over the United States and the World!  Here is a sample of visitors to the class from the last two years.

Dr. Ernesto Bohoslavsky, National University-General Sarmiento (Argentina)

“President Milei, Conspiracy Theories, and Disinformation in Contemporary Argentina.”

Dr. Bela Bodo, University of Bonn (Germany)

“Red Terror, White Terror, and the Judeo-Bolshevik Conspiracy Theory in Interwar Hungary”

Mian Chen, Doctoral Candidate, Northwestern University

“China, the Soviet Union, and Conspiracy Theories”

Reading: “Sino-Soviet Bloc Propaganda Forgeries 1 January 1957 to 1 July 1959” 

Dr. Aaron Coy Moulton, Stephen Austin University

“The Connection between US Right wing conspiracy theories and the Caribbean Basin”

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Featured image: Birds Aren’t Real [@birdsarentreal] “A new era begins.” Instagram, June 5, 2021. https://www.instagram.com/birdsarentreal?igsh=MnFtdWk5cmJpYjV0