Kathryn Olmsted
Professor of History, UC Davis
“Just Because You’re Paranoid Doesn’t Mean They’re Not Out to Get You: Anti-Government Conspiracy Theories in American History”
Kathryn Olmsted is author of multiple books on U.S. and California history, including Challenging the Secret Government: The Post-Watergate Investigations of the CIA and FBI (1996), Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11 (2009), and Right Out of California: The 1930s and the Big Business Roots of Modern Conservatism (2015). Her research develops one of the central themes of 20th-century U.S. history: the influence of anticommunism on American politics and policy.
