Are there books about Australian conspiracy theories?

Three kinds of book help here. Academic studies of conspiracy belief as a social phenomenon. Serious Australian political and institutional history. And critical histories of fraternal organisations.

A fourth category — books asserting theories as fact — is worth reading only as primary evidence of how the theories are constructed.

The Dismissal, the Petrov affair, the 1978 Hilton bombing, ASIO's institutional history and the major royal commissions all have substantial, well-sourced literature written by journalists and historians with archive access.

These are the books that show what documented Australian secrecy actually looks like, which makes fabricated versions easier to spot.

Australian Masonic history, friendly-society histories and collections of Australian folklore and urban legend are published by university presses, state libraries and historical societies. Many are available through state library lending.

Check the endnotes before the blurb. A book that cites archives, inquiries and named interviews is doing different work from one that cites websites. Check whether the author names a publisher with an editorial process.

Age matters less than sourcing. A well-sourced 1980s history beats a recent unsourced bestseller.

Australian state libraries hold extensive local collections, offer free membership and provide access to digitised newspapers through Trove. It is the cheapest research infrastructure available to anyone in the country.