(Editor’s Note: The following is a guest post by Jonathan Earle, Associate Professor of History at the University of Kansas. Although a specialist in antebellum U.S. Politics, he teaches a popular undergraduate class on the History of Conspiracy Theories and Paranoia in U.S. History.  His next book, on the election of 1860 (itself loaded with conspiracy) will appear in Oxford University Press’ Pivotal Moments in U.S. History series.) Teaching a course on conspiracy theories is always interesting in the Age of Obama, but this fall has been an especially propitious time to guide an intellectual tour through American political paranoia.  Read more