Conspiracy and Its Curious Afterlives

Instead of dismissing the “paranoid style” of politics, this chapter argues for the generative power of conspiracy. It traces the actions of a circle of French and Russian activists whose scheming managed to change the course of international politics and may have also resulted in the production of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. At the same time, the chapter reflects on an unexpected afterlife of conspiracy—its tendency to entrap its practitioners, resulting in unexpected outcomes. The chapter closes with a methodological reflection about the challenges that working on conspiracies poses to historians—namely, the risk that they too will become entrapped in conspiracies and their unexpected byproducts.