Off the Edge

November 8, 2021
Daily Beast reporter Weill focuses this insightful and surprisingly empathetic survey of conspiracy theories on the history of Flat Earth theory, “the ultimate incarnation of conspiratorial thinking.” She traces the belief’s origins to a 19th-century utopian English commune and profiles modern-day believers including “Mad Mike” Hughes, who died in February 2020 while attempting to reach the earth’s upper atmosphere in a homemade rocket. According to Weill, conspiratorial thinking is not some “weird pathology,” but part of the same “powers of abstraction that make humans good at detecting patterns.” She documents spikes in conspiracy thinking during historical periods of “rapid industrialization and income inequality,” and links the resurgence of Flat Earth theory in the early 2000s to Y2K paranoia and 9/11 trutherism. Weill also delves into Pizzagate and QAnon, arguing that the “flat earth and pro-Trump movements share strands of the same conspiratorial, counter-factual DNA”; details how Big Tech’s efforts to stop the spread of misinformation have backfired; and notes that “real-world communities” can pull people out of the rabbit holes they find online. Weill’s immersion in the Flat Earth community and acknowledgment of her own conspiratorial thinking gives her reporting a refreshingly compassionate slant. The result is an illuminating take on a much scrutinized subject.

December 1, 2021
A Daily Beast reporter probes the relationship between flat Earth beliefs and the rise of modern conspiracy theories. Before the pandemic, the 2020 presidential election, and civil unrest changed the world, Weill regarded flat Eartherism as "something close to a joke." Yet as the Trump administration and its penchant for "alternative facts" fed social and political turmoil at home and abroad, Weill was "stripped...of [the] smugness" she felt for believing that most people were grounded in reality. She looked more closely into the flat Eartherism she derided and discovered social parallels that intrigued as much as they unsettled. As the author notes, anti-globalism emerged out of the ashes of a failed socialist experiment--itself intended as a form of rebellion against the Industrial Revolution--in 19th century Britain. Weill attributes the persistence of this anti-scientific belief less to the delusions of crackpots like flat Earth movement founder Samuel Rowbotham and more to the idea that the conspiracy thinking in which flat Eartherism is grounded results when humans are faced with the incomprehensible and uncontrollable. Turning her attention to contemporary history, the author suggests how the internet--in particular, social media--has wrought havoc on truth by helping to disseminate disinformation. In turn, this has helped create a paranoid culture and "conspiratorial melting pot" in which Rowbotham's flat Eartherism has not only flourished, but also "cross-pollinated" with everything from anti-vaccination advocates to QAnon conspiracy theories. Perhaps most unnerving of all of Weill's observations is that conspiratorial movements and cults are "cousins"--both have dogmatic followers that not only "keep each other in line," but also keep themselves "away from the outside world." This provocative book is sure to inspire debate about conspiracy theories as well as how citizens of a fractured world can learn to overcome their fear of radical planetary change. A timely and disturbing study of flawed, dangerous thinking.

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January 1, 2022

A fringe theory dating to the mid-19th century holds that the Earth is not a globe, but a flat plane. Daily Beast reporter Weill traces the unlikely trajectory of this belief, from the seminal Flat Earthers Samuel Rowbotham (an English inventor) and John Dowie (founder of the planned community of Zion, IL), to the morass of conspiracy theories proliferating online in the era of Trump and QAnon. Kept alive for decades as much by satirists as by its few adherents, Flat Earth theory now thrives on social media. Weill argues that the internet accelerates radicalization and allows conspiracy theories to intersect and mix, abetted by wide-scale anxiety brought on by economic uncertainty, social unrest, and the global pandemic. With notable empathy, Weill explains how conspiracy theory ecosystems isolate adherents both from sources of factual information and from family and friends. As with exit from a cult, outreach and trust-building are the most hopeful tools to encourage people out of conspiratorial thinking, she writes. Meanwhile, all press is good press for conspiracy cults, and Weiss acknowledges the conundrum that media attention (including her own reporting and this book) creates visibility and, likely, new followers. VERDICT An illuminating study that locates the common human psychological impulses behind conspiracy culture.--Janet Ingraham Dwyer

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2022
No amount of scientific proof will convince a dedicated Flat Earther that the earth is round; this is because they believe that behind every fact is a vast conspiracy to hide the truth. Weill traces the growth of the Flat Earth movement, from nineteenth-century Cambridgeshire to early-twentieth-century Illinois to its explosion on the internet. From the beginning, the movement was marked by earnest but shoddy science, often rooted in Christian literalism, and the belief that either godless or government forces (or both) were suppressing the truth. Also, the moon landing was a hoax. Weill uses Flat Earth to explain the spread of conspiracy theories in the age of the internet, where algorithms prioritize popularity (and ad revenue) over relevance, leading innocuous YouTube searchers to slickly produced radical content. She explores the intersection of Flat Earth with QAnon, fascism, antisemitism, and COVID misinformation, and the mainstreaming of conspiracy theories under President Trump and his Twitter feed. In lively prose, Weill untangles the most complicated webs, revealing the real people who believe the unbelievable.

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