Andy NgoReseñas

I thought this was a well-written, and seems to be well-researched book. It's not tedious to read [I just read Cynical Theories and that was tedious for me, though informative]. I enjoyed the historical perspective too on the rise of antifascism.

Several of the negative comments talked about how it's lacking grammar and editing. I found 4 instances of a word being dropped. Three of those instances I recall the word being "of" or "and". One was identifying a professor of something. The something was the word missing. Not really a reason to lambaste the whole book in that regard.

Well written narrative that takes the individual videos and stories over the last three years and layers in terrifying historical context of Antifa and presents evidence that, in addition to Antifa being more than an "Idea" [sic], they are an organized, real, violent threat to the American way of life.

A gripping work of fantasy. However, since it's presented as reporting it has to be considered a total failure, as anyone taking the trouble to cross-check Ngo's accounts with those of reliable media sources will be able to confirm.

Continuing with my reads to try and understand the culture wars and the state our countries are in right now.
This is a very good title for this book. It looks at the history of the Antifa group, what they hope to accomplish, their training and philosophy and it is frightening. Ngo is a photo journalist from Portland observing Antifa who has been beaten with resulting head trauma and has been much reviled by the group. HIs parents are new Americans who fled the communists of Vietnam and had horrible experiences in reeducation camps and were "boat people" to flee the country. He has grave concerns about the direction that Antifa wants to take the country. This book should be read with an open mind. For me any group that does and tries to justify violence is reprehensible. Antifa has been protected by the left leaning press.

I often joke how the US is screwed. It's not a joke any more. This is pretty scary.

Unfortunately the book doesn't deliver much beyond reporting on a few incidents and a sneak peak behind the curtain of the organisation(s). There's no high level view or analysis. You can feel the story is personal and the reportage is very much from the ground level.

Still Mostly Masked
Review of the Center Street Kindle eBook edition (Feb. 2021)

Unmasked came along with a polarized rollout campaign that saw Antifa activists harassing Powell's Bookstore in Portland, Oregon in order to attempt to stop sales of the book. A block of early 1 star reviews on Goodreads was part of the online effort to dissuade interest. A random quick scan of those reviews reveals that many of those "reviewers" exist only for that single review and show no other evidence of Goodreads activity. To offset those efforts, many supporters of the book give automatic 5-star reviews in an attempt to balance the scales.

My own 3-star rating is a compromise in that, although the history and documentation that Andy Ngô provides is important, it doesn't reveal very much beyond the nightly incident reports that one would gleam from reading Ngô's twitter feed. The "trove of documents obtained by the author that he will publish for the first time in this book" are selected excerpts from an Antifa training manual and are not any great reveal of grand conspiracy and cover-up which one might expect.

Ngô is excellent on providing the historical background to Antifa's rise. He traces it from the founding of Antifaschistische Aktion (Antifascist Action) in 1932 by the German Communist Party (where they bizarrely united with the Nazis to harass liberal politicians and citizens) on through various terrorist gangs such as Italy's Red Faction and Germany's Baader-Meinhof gang on to England's leftist skinheads and finally to the United States.

Aside from the above, there is no great "unmasking" of the greater machinations of the movement. Its funding and greater strategic planning remain a mystery. Somehow members are funded in order to travel between cities in order to incite violence when ignition incidents such as police shootings present themselves. Suspiciously, various GoFundMe's for bail funds and such are begun and then disappear without accountability. These are likely a major source of the funding activity. No evident masterminds of all of this are revealed though. This is especially the key missing element, a reveal of undermining foreign influences (ie. Russia, China, etc) and/or undercover/false flag activity would be the true "Unmasking." That would require a greater investigation which apparently main stream media in the current climate are not willing to undertake.

I read Unmasked as part of my reading survey of various books in relation to the 2020 American Election and the post-Election situation. As a Canadian I’ve generally ignored American politics and elections in past years, but the drama of the situation in 2020/21 has heightened my interest. As an outside observer it does seem extraordinary that the mainstream media appears to cover up the occurence of leftist/anarchist violence while constantly drawing attention to any instances of rightist/populist violence.

On order. Antifa wants to keep people from reading it. That's one good reason to read it.