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ISBN: 9798893031508
Publishing: June 9, 2026
Price: $18.95 US / $24.95 CAN
Paperback: 384 pages
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Unproven, Unlikely, and Firmly Believed
Why We Fall for History’s Most Seductive Conspiracy Theories, and How We Rediscover Reality
by Jonn Elledge, Tom Phillips
 

From the internationally bestselling authors of A Brief History of the World in 47 Borders (Jonn Elledge) and Truth and Humans (Tom Phillips), a fascinating, insightful, often hilarious, and extremely timely journey through conspiracy theories, how they spread, and how not to fall for them

From the Satanic Panic to the anti-vax movement, the moon landing to Pizzagate, it’s always been human nature to believe we’re being lied to by the powers that be (and sometimes, to be fair, we absolutely are).

But while it can be fun to indulge in a bit of Deep State banter on the group chat, recent times have shown us that some of these theories have taken on a life of their own—and in our dogged quest for the truth, it appears we might actually be doing it some damage.

In Unproven, Unlikely, and Firmly Believed, Tom Phillips and Jonn Elledge take us on an eye-opening journey through history’s greatest conspiracy theories, to try and answer a vital question for our times: How can we learn to log off the QAnon message boards and start trusting hard evidence again?

Publisher’s note: Unproven, Unlikely, and Firmly Believed was previously published in the UK as Conspiracy: A History of Boll*cks Theories, and How Not to Fall for Them.

Praise for the UK edition

"Uproarious . . . [Phillips and Elledge] pair the abundant good humor of this book with a warning about the corrosive effects of conspiracy theories.”—The Times

“Witty, entertaining, and slightly distressing.”—Sarah Knight, author of The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck

“Brilliant. Utterly, utterly brilliant.”—Jeremy Clarkson, co-host of BBC’s Top Gear

“Very funny.”—Mark Watson, comedian, novelist, and producer

Books by Jonn Elledge

Jonn Elledge’s books include A Brief History of the World in 47 Borders, Elledge’s Nontrivial Trivia, and Unproven, Unlikely, and Firmly Believed. At the New Statesman, he created and ran its urbanism-focused CityMetric site, spending six happy years writing about cities, maps, and borders. He lives in London.


JonnElledge
jonn.substack.com

Tom Phillips is an author and journalist from London. He is currently the editor of Full Fact, the UK’s independent fact checking organization. Before that, he was editorial director at BuzzFeed UK. His book Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked It All Up (a history of failure through the ages), was published in 2018 and has sold in 30 territories worldwide.