Norman Cohn
03 Oct 1994 12:00
[I]t is a great mistake to suppose that the only writers who matter are those
whom the educated in their saner moments can take seriously. There exists a
subterranean world where pathological fantasies disguised as ideas are churned
out by crooks and half-educated fanatics for the benefit of the ignorant and
superstitious. There are times when this underworld emerges from the depths
and suddenly fascinates, captures, and dominates multitudes of usually sane and
responsible people, who thereupon take leave of sanity and responsibility. And
it occasionally happens that this underworld becomes a political power and
changes the course of history.
---Warrant for Genocide: the Myth of the Jewish World-Conspiracy and
the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, p. 18
A British historian who has written brilliant books on
millenarianism and
conspiracy theories.
