Illuminati: The History of a Conspiracy Theory

The first proper history of the world’s most notorious secret society and its bizarre and dangerous afterlifeOn 1 May 1776 a radical young professor named Adam Weishaupt founded a secret society whose aim was to infiltrate and overturn the system of world power from within.Intellectuals, judges, politicians and poets joined, united by Enlightenment ideals and liberal attitudes towards politics and religion.They called themselves the Order of the Illuminati. Within a decade the Order, with its bizarre ciphers and melodramatic rituals, was gone.Outed and banned by the authorities, its leaders were prosecuted and exiled; its effects had been minimal.Yet to this day millions of people worldwide maintain that its collapse was a sham and that for 250 years this shadowy cabal of self-appointed power brokers, whose members now include Hillary Clinton, George Soros, Bill Gates and Taylor Swift, has been manipulating world events - starting wars, swaying elections, setting interest rates and cre