Publisher Description
Adapted from Decoded, Meltzer’s hit show on the HISTORY network, History Decoded explores fascinating, unexplained questions. Is Fort Knox empty? Why was Hitler so intent on capturing the Roman ‘Spear of Destiny’? What’s the government hiding in Area 51? Where did the Confederacy’s $19 million in gold and silver go at the end of the Civil War? And did Lee Harvey Oswald really act alone? Meltzer sifts through the evidence; weighs competing theories; separates what we know to be true with what’s still—and perhaps forever—unproved or unprovable; and in the end, decodes the mystery, arriving at the most likely solution. Along the way we meet Freemasons, Rosicrucians, Nazi propagandists, and the real DB Cooper.
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“From a prolific novelist and legal
analyst, a bemused look at the hidden conspiracies threaded throughout American
history—the companion volume to the History Channel show. With the assistance
of Ferrell, Meltzer begins by asserting that, although conspiracy theory can
provide a shaky lens for examining our times, ‘someone must ask the hard
questions, especially of our elected officials as well as powerful men who
become members of so-called secret societies.’ He thus advances an expansive
acceptance regarding both controversial and obscure footnotes to various
historical narratives, coupled with a keen sense of how a belief in
conspiracies has become central to our political life…The prose is lively and
casually amusing…making these compact narratives seem breezily accessible but
also less intellectually weighty. Slick and engaging but lightweight—a good
impulse read for fans of secret histories.”—
Kirkus Reviews
