The first complete history of the world’s most notorious secret society – and its bizarre and dangerous afterlife that we’re still reckoning with today.

On 1 May 1776 a radical young professor named Adam Weishaupt founded a secret society with the aim of infiltrating and overturning the system of world power. Many influential figures joined, united by scandalously liberal ideals, elaborate ciphers, and melodramatic rituals. They called themselves the Order of the Illuminati.

Within a decade, they were gone – outed and banned by the authorities, their leaders prosecuted and exiled, their project a dismal failure. Yet millions of people maintain the Illuminati lives on, manipulating world events from 9/11 to the Covid pandemic and the career of Taylor Swift.

Illuminati is the gripping story of the Order’s rise, fall, and enduring legacy: the idea that the Order’s collapse was a sham and its hold on power complete. First a means of explaining the shocking violence of the French Revolution, historian Michael Taylor reveals the ways in which people have reinvented this conspiracy time and again at moments of spectacular change, fear and perceived betrayal – exposing the power of conspiracist thinking as never before.

'A superb and often surprising account . . . by turns enlightening, unsettling and amusing' Telegraph*****

'Terrifically entertaining' Economist

'Restores the real Illuminati to their place in history . . . with skill and wit' The Times

‘A dazzling jewel of a book’ Sathnam Sanghera

© Michael Taylor 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026