It should really get 5 stars but it wasn't an easy read like I thought it might have been. It was very good and informative but it was highly academic and written by a true scholar. That's definitely not a bad thing but they take more to read than others that are plainly written for entertainment. She is the person I would go to if I had ANY question about the alt-right because "thorough" is an understatement. ( )

It should really get 5 stars but it wasn't an easy read like I thought it might have been. It was very good and informative but it was highly academic and written by a true scholar. That's definitely not a bad thing but they take more to read than others that are plainly written for entertainment. She is the person I would go to if I had ANY question about the alt-right because "thorough" is an understatement. ( )

The Publisher Says: A critical analysis of the intellectual productions of the alt-right—necessary reading for all who seek to counter its appeal and expansion.

The "alt-right" has sadly become a household term. From a loose movement that lurked in the shadows in the early 2000s, it has achieved a level of visibility that has allowed it to expand significantly through America's cultural, political, and digital landscapes. But the alt-right is also mercurial and shape-shifting, encompassing a range of believers and ideas that overlap with white nationalism, white supremacy, and neo-Nazism. It provides a big and porous tent to those who subscribe to varying forms of race and gender-based exclusion.

In Proud Boys and the White Ethno-State, historian Alexandra Stern begins with the premise that alt-right literature, most of which exists online, should be taken seriously as a form of intellectual production that has distinct lineages, assumptions, and objectives. Applying the tools of historical analysis, cultural studies, and other interdisciplinary approaches, she explores its conceptual frameworks, language, and narratives. In doing so, she is able to probe the deeper meanings and underlying constructs, concepts, and frameworks that guide the alt-right and animate its overlapping forms of racism, xenophobia, sexism, and other social hostilities.

Like George Lakoff's Don't Think of an Elephant, Proud Boys and the White Ethno-State is a key tool for combating today's white supremacist ideologies.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: What?! A four-star Burgoine review?! That...that's not what you do, Sirrah.

Let's say I've learned my lesson. Political stuff is very much not what most people I know want to read. Y'all should read it because...never mind. No one's going to eat their spinach because I said to.

What I *will* say to the two or three whose noses are as yet unwrinkled and eyes still open is that the author delves deep into the cesspit of this reprehensible "ideology"'s apologetics. She does so without coming across as minatory or dismissive, as I do. She clearly shows what the "reasoning" is behind this claptrap and, being an academic, points out where it's deficient in its grasp.

What makes that so very valuable is that we, the unconvinced but still engaged, don't have to experience the awfulness of a people trying to talk themselves into believing they are Superior. I can barely type that sentence without wanting to laugh while barfing.

Anyway. The point of me reviewing it is to say you definitely would learn a LOT about the January 6th events if you read this; you would understand a lot more clearly why the movement is moving peristaltically through the Body Politic of the US; and your grasp of what is at stake in 2024 will impel you to action in place of apathy.

Learn what you don't know that you don't know. Through 12/31, it's 30% off at Beacon's website! Use code SPARKJOY30. ( )

It should really get 5 stars but it wasn't an easy read like I thought it might have been. It was very good and informative but it was highly academic and written by a true scholar. That's definitely not a bad thing but they take more to read than others that are plainly written for entertainment. She is the person I would go to if I had ANY question about the alt-right because "thorough" is an understatement. (less) [edit] ( )

Part of my continued reading to figure out what the *heck* is going on in American culture and politics today. Stern discusses how the alt-right, and those righter than them, are mainstreaming their ideas and how that's affecting our culture and our governance. Scary stuff, indeed. And insidious, as well. ( )