History Decoded: The 10 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time

by Brad Meltzer, Keith Ferrell (With)

Overview

It's an irresistible combination: Brad Meltzer, a born storyteller, counting down the world's most intriguing unsolved mysteries. And to make this richly illustrated book even richer, each chapter invites the reader along for an interactive experience through the addition of facsimile documents—the evidence! It's a treasure trove for conspiracy buffs, a Griffin and Sabine for history lovers.

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.

At the beginning of each story is a custom-designed envelope—a faux 19th-century leather satchel, a U.S. government classified file—containing facsimiles of relevant evidence: John Wilkes Booth’s alleged unsigned will, a map of the Vatican, Kennedy’s death certificate. The whole is a riveting, interactive adventure through the compelling world of mysteries and conspiracies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780761178651
Publisher:	Workman Publishing Company, Inc.
Publication date:	10/22/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	160
Sales rank:	176,912
File size:	37 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Brad Meltzer is the host of Brad Meltzer’s Decoded on the HISTORY network. He is also the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Inner Circle, The Book of Fate, and eight other bestselling novels including his newest, The Fifth Assassin. He is the author of the nonfiction bestsellers Heroes for My Son and Heroes for My Daughter as well. He and his wife live in Florida.

Hometown:

Florida

Date of Birth:

1970

Place of Birth:

New York, New York

Education:

B.A., University of Michigan; J.D., Columbia University

Website:

http://www.bradmeltzer.com

Read an Excerpt

John Wilkes Booth: Was Lincoln’s Assassin Apprehended?

WHAT IF I TOLD YOU that after murdering President Abraham Lincoln, the most famous assassin in American history lived for 40 more years?

We all know the story: In 1865, on a Friday night at Ford’s Theatre, John Wilkes Booth killed our 16th president with a single bullet to the back of his head. Instantly becoming America’s most wanted man, Booth jumped from the presidential balcony and fled on horseback across Maryland and Virginia. But some speculate that the history books—which tell us that Booth was shot 12 days later at Garrett’s farm near Port Royal, Virginia—are flat-out wrong.

Some believe Booth didn’t die that night. They claim he was actually acting on behalf of the Confederate Secret Service, who then aided him in his escape. They argue the man killed at Garrett’s barn was actually a look-alike, a patsy used to throw off Union soldiers. What’s even more amazing: This is just one of three plausible theories of Booth’s escape. If there’s even the slightest possibility John Wilkes Booth was able to escape the law and live as a fugitive for another 40 years, I want to know what happened.

It’s time to decode John Wilkes Booth.

Table of Contents

Introduction
#10 John Wilkes Booth: Was Lincoln’s Assassin Apprehended?
#9: Confederate Gold: Stolen Treasure or Hidden Wealth of a New Confederacy?
#8: The Georgia Guidestones: America’s Stonehenge
#7: DB Cooper: American Outlaw
#6: The White House: Where Is the Cornerstone of Democracy?
#5: The Spear of Destiny: History’s Most Sacred Relic
#4: The Real Da Vinci Code: Did Leonardo Predict an Apocalypse?
#3: Is There Any Gold in Fort Knox?
#2: UFOs: Inside Roswell and Area 51
#1: The Kennedy Assassination: The Truth Is Out There
Acknowledgments
Decoded Team
Photo Credits

Editorial Reviews

Meltzer peppers each section with fascinating asides….and trivia…that is sure to keep readers enthralled and conspiracy theorists encouraged to continue to dig for the truth.”  - Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

A lively and cleverly packaged exploration.”
—Bookpage

BookPage

2013-10-05
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 (Tougher Times: A Practical Guide for Getting Through Them, 2009, etc.), Meltzer (The Fifth Assassin, 2013, etc.) 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. In discussing the role of the Freemasons in building the White House, plans for the Confederacy to rise again via hidden stashes of "rebel gold" or the possibility that D.B. Cooper was a disgruntled airline employee hiding in plain sight, Meltzer alludes to the kind of ramshackle yet potent cabals that animate pop-culture works like The Da Vinci Code or the National Treasure movies. (Yet the author often steps in to reject the wilder claims he encounters--e.g., that the good deeds of the Freemasons conceal "a secret core of leaders who control and guide the organization towards far darker goals.") Regarding presidential assassinations, Meltzer first grabs the reader's attention by asserting that without a DNA investigation, "we'll never know for sure whether John Wilkes Booth died in 1865." He regards the JFK assassination as so complex that he walks readers through 10 separate purported conspiracies within it. The prose is lively and casually amusing, peppered with asides regarding the sheer wackiness of these hidden tales (e.g., in his supposed quest for the Spear of Destiny, Hitler was "looking to steal a page from the super-villain playbook"), 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