Hello,
Sometimes I find it fascinating to look into the more bizarre non-academic theories of history that exist, known as pseudo-history. It's not just about imagining how this strange would they live in would be like if it actually existed, but also what fascinates me is trying to piece together how they try to justify their argument.
I wonder if there has been some systematic research in how these pseudo-histories are made? I have read before books that talk about why pseudo-history is made, which usually boils down to some ideological, political, or religious agenda. But I'm more curious about the process of how a pseudo-history is pulled together.
Anyone can throw together a blog post claiming that Finland doesn't exist, but it takes a certain level of craftmanship, perhaps even an artform, to make it sound believable. Believable not just for an individual, but to grow in public media as large as possible before legitimate academia is able to shut it down. In the same way that books have been written about the arts used in propaganda or stage magic, I imagine pseudo-history is another field that optimizes how to deceive people, but I'm not aware of any such study myself.
There has been far less serious study of pseudoscience or pseudohistory than one might desire, given their outsized role in popular understanding. This is no doubt because of its debased role among experts. The one book I know that looks closely at some of this — notably the work of Immanuel Velikovsky — is Michael Gordin's The Pseudoscience Wars. It looks in detail at how Velikovsky composed his own pseudohistory/pseudoscience and the role it had on other "New Age" pseudohistories (like Erich von Däniken), and does its best not to simply disparage this kind of thing. You can [read my review of it here](http://alexwellerstein.com/publications/wellerstein_heterodoxy(science).pdf).