Historical aspects of American trypanosomiasis (Chagas' disease)

Post do not limit their investigation of political paranoia to simply these obvious candidates. They label as paranoid David Koresh, leader of the ill-fated Branch Davidians who died in a fiery blaze in 1993, Jim Jones, whose 912 cult followers committed suicide in 1978, and movie director Oliver Stone whose film JFK (1992) has achieved iconic status among the many Americans who believe their government regularly lies to them. On the whole Robins and Post's book is a sophisticated discussion of the issue. There is no reason to doubt their thesis that paranoid psychology is deeply ingrained in our biological nature. We are tempted all too often to indulge our suspicions that we are dupes and victims of wilier, sinister persons. The authors are also careful not to oversimplify. For instance, they astutely note that though Senator Joseph McCarthy was adept at playing the game of paranoid politics in the early 1950s, he himself was not a paranoid (p. 223). On other occasions, however, they leave this reader shaking his head. What purpose is served by calling the ingeniously paranoid Lyndon LaRouche "a kind of Allan Bloom gone mad"? (p. 198). And describing the militia movement in today's America as "a reaction against feminism" (p. 214) is surely taking liberties their otherwise sensible and informed approach does not warrant. Indeed, one has to question their liberal and uncritical use of Freudian notions like "projection". Plausible some pyschoanalytic ideas may be, but in view of the recent cogent attacks on Freud's theories the authors need to be more careful. The advice of this reviewer would be to leave Freudian speculation aside as it does not really contribute to their overall argument. Robins and Post actually end their book with a rather optimistic conclusion, at least for American readers. Paranoid politics with its "hyperemotionality" and "shouting of accusations" does not go very far in the American political system (p. 236). For many of the world's other nations, however, Robins and Post predict a rougher future. Paranoia plays well when states are being divided along ethnic, linguistic, or tribal lines. Perhaps it is because of these global tensions as the new millennium approaches that paranoia is receiving increasing attention. Political paranoia is only one of several books about paranoia to appear in the last two years. These include John Farrell's Freud's paranoid quest (1996) and Daniel Pipes's Conspiracy: how the paranoid styleflourishes and …