Perennial, $15, 2000, ISBN 0-06-093184-1, 467 pages

Subtitled, The Hidden History that Connects the Trilateral Commission, The Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids, this is a conspiracy book, plain and simple. There's at least a dozen seasons of X-Files shows within.

Basically, Jim Marrs covers all recorded history in an effort to convince us that (a) aliens have made Earth one big slave planet, or (b) greedy industrialists and corporations control everything and everyone on Earth. Slaves of a different type, I guess.

There. I saved you 467 painful pages.

I can't say (a) is true. I've never seen any UFOs, although I do believe that with billions of solar systems in millions of galaxies, the odds that humans are alone in the cosmos is between slim and none.

As for (b), greed is universal, and corporations wield economic power, so I figure this is a more likely scenario. I also figure that should just 50 to 300 people rule the world, the odds they will remain united in action is also slim and none. I guess that's why wars occur.

In any case, Marrs' history lessons emerge mostly out of the New Encyclopedia Britannica. I kid you not. Other sources are consulted, but I get the feeling that most of them are other conspiracy books...not all, but most.

However, just about the time I was ready to toss this as a hack job, along came the 1942 U.S. Senate hearings on Standard Oil (of USA) dealings with Nazi Germany's I.G. Farben. Standard Oil oil was shipped to Germany via Spain, along with additional financial dealings (Pgs. 178-81). Some allegations are over the top: GM plants turned out trucks for the German Army. Somehow, I doubt the German workers in a German factory would stop making trucks because GM owned the plant. But the oil shipments during the war are another matter. And the only reason I pause is because in Magweb.com, one magazine is publishing the hearing transcripts...and folks, it is not pretty. Sharkhunters' KTB magazine is running the record. It makes interesting reading, spanning multiple issues.

And that the crux of conspiracy books: you get a small fact and try to tie it to a larger equation. Multinational business transcend "sides" because after a war, assets and their retention become most important, followed by who gets the rebuilding contracts. Think Haliburton and Iraq in 2003 if a contemporary reference makes you feel better.

Oops. I just created a conspiracy theory...though hardly an original one. The truth is out there, eh? Perhaps. But I doubt you'll find it in the Encyclopedia Britannica...or Rule by Secrecy. Or will you?