Ghosts of Iron Mountain: The Hoax of the Century, Its Enduring Impact, and What It Reveals About America Today, by Phil Tinline, Scribner, 352 pages, $29.99
Chapel Perilous: The Life and Thought Crimes of Robert Anton Wilson, by Gabriel Kennedy, Media Heist Publications, 288 pages, $29.99
When I was 18, a friend handed me a spiral-bound samizdat manuscript he'd run off at Kinko's. This had once been a secret document, he told me: the report of a government commission that had concluded war was necessary for social stability. Someone had leaked it, and it had been published—but later it had disappeared from stores, almost as though it had been suppressed. Happily, he had a copy, and now I had one too.
