Why We Love a Conspiracy

In “Under the Eye of Power,” a timely book about the spread of conspiracy theories, the writer Colin Dickey argues that pseudo-secret narratives “have been a hallmark of American democracy from its inception.” Take George Washington: His transition “from an uneducated plantation owner to the head of a new nation cannot be entirely disentangled from his involvement in Masonry,” Mr. Dickey writes, invoking the secret society that is a perennial wellspring of conspiracy maundering.