A Literary-Biographical Approach to the Study of Conspiracy Theory: The Development of the “Grand Design” in the Works of Douglas Reed

Abstract

This case study, a literary-biographical analysis of the early nonfiction works of conspiracy theorist Douglas Reed (1895–1976), is intended as a contribution to both conspiracy theory studies and the study of nonfiction narrative. My argument is that Reed’s oeuvre, understood diachronically and as an ultimately teleological whole, provides privileged insight into how conspiracy narratives are created, what happens when they come into conflict, and how new and larger conspiracy narratives are synthesized. Further, Reed’s work demonstrates that if there is a “standard” anti-Semitic conspiracy narrative, its manifestations are not homogenous and are at times subject to radical modification, with such modifications occurring during a conspiracy theorist’s processes of investigation and reinvestigation, as initially held theories connect and conflict with the deeper structures of the standard anti-Semitic conspiracy narrative and create unique synthetic variations.