Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History

by Kurt Andersen

With conspiracism suddenly on the rise, The Late, Great Planet Earth purported to reveal the details of the evil über-conspiracy—how Satan and the Antichrist and False Prophet and their minions in all their respectable disguises were taking over the world. For instance, those confusing references to “Gog” throughout the Bible? Obviously the Soviet Union. And the “beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns”? The new European Economic Community! (Even though in 1970 it had only six members.) What’s more, the EEC was created by the Treaty of Rome—and in Revelation, of course, “the great whore” Babylon is Rome! And so on. The Late, Great Planet Earth was the bestselling (so-called) nonfiction book of the entire decade, and it continued selling a million copies a year for the rest of the millennium. Its template was fill-in-the-blanks-flexible enough to incorporate all new satanic agents as they emerged—China! Iran! vaccines! Obama! Pope Francis! ISIS!