04/30/2018
Belew, an assistant professor of history at the University of Chicago, delivers an engrossing and comprehensive history of the white power movement in America, highlighting its racism, antigovernment hostility, and terrorist tactics. This impressively researched work looks into, first, the Vietnam War’s influence on the movement’s earliest leaders, such as Vietnam veteran Louis Beam, who equated the Vietnam War with American decline and wanted to reclaim a time before civil rights, legal abortion, birth control, immigration of nonwhites, and interracial marriage. Then, Belew investigates the movement’s evolution: its call for “leaderless resistance” and war against the government in the 1980s; the growth of its militia phase that led to the Ruby Ridge standoff in Idaho, the Branch Davidians in Waco, and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing; and its shift to online platforms in the late 1990s. She also studies the movement’s paramilitary training camps, the role of women in the movement, its push to respond in kind to the militarization of police departments, and the difficulties of prosecuting its leaders—due, in part, to its strategy of decentralization and the groundswell of support for militias in the mid-1990s. Belew presents a convincing case that white power rhetoric and activism continue to influence mainstream U.S. politics. (Apr.)
Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America
Narrated by Jo Anna Perrin
Kathleen BelewUnabridged — 10 hours, 35 minutes
Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America
Narrated by Jo Anna Perrin
Kathleen BelewUnabridged — 10 hours, 35 minutes
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Overview
Returning to an America ripped apart by a war that, in their view, they were not allowed to win, a small but driven group of veterans, active-duty personnel, and civilian supporters concluded that waging war on their own country was justified. They unified people from a variety of militant groups, including Klansmen, neo-Nazis, skinheads, radical tax protestors, and white separatists. The white power movement operated with discipline and clarity, undertaking assassinations, mercenary soldiering, armed robbery, counterfeiting, and weapons trafficking. Its command structure gave women a prominent place in brokering intergroup alliances and giving birth to future recruits.
Belew's disturbing history reveals how war cannot be contained in time and space. In its wake, grievances intensify and violence becomes a logical course of action for some. Bring the War Home argues for awareness of the heightened potential for paramilitarism in a present defined by ongoing war.
Editorial Reviews
This is a work of fierce intelligence. In a breathtaking and wholly convincing manner, Belew shows how white power activists used their view of the Vietnam War to advance every element of their reactionary agenda and to justify domestic terrorism. A book of signal importance and urgency, it provides a haunting vantage point on contemporary American political culture.
[Belew] presents a gorgeously rendered account of the white power movement in this country that reveals its symbiotic character, one that both feeds on mainstream angst and stimulates it to new heights.
This is a troubling book for many reasons, not just because of the scope of the white power network it reveals, though that is both disturbing and an important corrective to the insistence that white terrorists are ‘lone wolves’ who act spontaneously and independently of one another…[It] raises questions about how the elements of United States culture that valorize violence and draw ready distinctions between the deserving ‘us’ and the less deserving ‘them’ (or between people and animals, to use an even more recent variation on the theme) contribute to mass shootings…Belew treats the trajectory of white power victimhood as a shift from attacks on the other to a declaration of war against the federal government. It appears, in that sense, to be a rejection of the constitutional order.
Alarming and meticulously researched.
Invaluable to understanding our current political moment.
Fascinating…Belew connects seemingly disparate events like the killings at Greensboro, the persecution of Vietnamese fishers in Texas in the early 1980s, and the siege at Ruby Ridge. She shows how hatred of the federal government, fears of communism, and racism all combined in white-power ideology and explains why our responses to the movement have long been woefully inadequate.
Examine[s] how romantic public narratives have been deployed to suppress collective memory of the violence that underwrites white supremacy.
In this major work of scholarly synthesis, Kathleen Belew uses letters, ephemera and ‘zines’ as well as newspaper reports and official documents to reconstruct a dark chapter in American history that has chilling echoes for today.
Belew…counters the treatment of white terrorists as ‘lone wolves’ by tracing the contours of an organized white power movement that connected radical white extremists from Greensboro, North Carolina, to Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and from Waco, Texas, to Oklahoma City…Belew does the hard work of restoring those connections, revealing how white supremacists built a coalition of rural survivalists, urban skinheads, and anti-Semitic Christian Identity believers.
An engaging account of how and why the modern white power movement emerged from 1975 to 1995…[Belew] offers an unprecedented level of detail, engaging deeply with developments that other authors typically gloss over…Bring the War Home is an excellent resource for anyone interested in the history of America’s white power movement.
A gripping study of white power…It is impossible to read the book without recalling more recent events…The book’s explosive thesis: that the white power movement that reached a culmination with the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing emerged as a radical reaction to the [Vietnam] war…It is a breathtaking argument, one that treats foreign policy as the impetus for a movement that most people view through the lens of domestic racism…It’s a stunning indictment of official culpability, and Belew constructs her case with forensic care. In doing so, she shows that, while racism is ever with us, policy choices ranging from local police strategies to the furthest reaches of foreign policy create the space for white power to flourish.
Fascinating…Belew connects seemingly disparate events like the killings at Greensboro, the persecution of Vietnamese fishers in Texas in the early 1980s, and the siege at Ruby Ridge. She shows how hatred of the federal government, fears of communism, and racism all combined in white-power ideology and explains why our responses to the movement have long been woefully inadequate.
An engaging account of how and why the modern white power movement emerged from 1975 to 1995…[Belew] offers an unprecedented level of detail, engaging deeply with developments that other authors typically gloss over…Bring the War Home is an excellent resource for anyone interested in the history of America’s white power movement.
Belew…traces the origins of the white power movement to the aftermath of the Vietnam War. She examines how various racist groups—skinheads, Klansmen, white separatists, neo-Nazis, militiamen, and others—united under a common banner and took the movement in a violent and revolutionary direction…Belew also argues that the anti-government sentiment created by the Vietnam War helped consolidate and radicalize the white power movement in ways we haven’t fully understood.
Compelling…Meticulously researched and powerfully argued, Belew’s book isn’t only a definitive history of white-racist violence in late-20th-century America, but also a rigorous meditation on the relationship between American militarism abroad and extremism at home…The power of Belew’s book comes, in part, from the fact that it reveals a story about white-racist violence that we should all already know.
For those who wish to make sense of the enduring ‘catastrophic ricochet of the Vietnam War’ as well as recent events in places like Charlottesville, Belew’s Bring the War Home is required reading.
Bring the War Home is a tour de force. An utterly engrossing and piercingly argued history that tracks how the seismic aftershocks of the Vietnam War gave rise to a white power movement whose toxic admixture of violent bigotry, antigovernmental hostility, and racial terrorism helped set the stage for Waco, the Oklahoma City bombing, and, yes, the presidency of Donald Trump.
A gorgeously rendered account of the white power movement in this country that reveals its symbiotic character, one that both feeds on mainstream angst and stimulates it to new heights.
Examine[s] how romantic public narratives have been deployed to suppress collective memory of the violence that underwrites white supremacy.
An essential reference book for our times.
Compelling…Meticulously researched and powerfully argued, Belew’s book isn’t only a definitive history of white-racist violence in late-20th-century America, but also a rigorous meditation on the relationship between American militarism abroad and extremism at home…Bring the War Home is a grim and sobering read—and, for many, it may arrive as a much-needed and troubling revelation: The sheer size of white-power extremism since Vietnam is frightening…The power of Belew’s book comes, in part, from the fact that it reveals a story about white-racist violence that we should all already know.
Fascinating and riveting... that archive is truly incredible.
If you weren’t afraid of the violent white power movement before reading [this], you will be when you’re done…Belew details fifty years of energetic racist organizing and violent acts…A ringing call to recognize the extent of the threat, in order to better organize an effective response.
A gripping study of white power…It is impossible to read the book without recalling more recent events…The book’s explosive thesis: that the white power movement ...emerged as a radical reaction to the [Vietnam] war…It is a breathtaking argument, one that treats foreign policy as the impetus for a movement that most people view through the lens of domestic racism…It’s a stunning indictment of official culpability, and Belew constructs her case with forensic care. In doing so, she shows that, while racism is ever with us, policy choices ranging from local police strategies to the furthest reaches of foreign policy create the space for white power to flourish.
This is a troubling book for many reasons, not just because of the scope of the white power network it reveals…[It] raises questions about how the elements of United States culture that valorize violence and draw ready distinctions between the deserving ‘us’ and the less deserving ‘them’ ...contribute to mass shootings…Belew treats the trajectory of white power victimhood as a shift from attacks on the other to a declaration of war against the federal government.
The connection between hate groups and the military is not new… Bring the War Home charts the path of radical white supremacists from the end of the Vietnam War to the 1995 bombing of a Federal government building in Oklahoma City.
A carefully written book that argues that violent white-supremacist groups were mobilized by the Vietnam War and the Cold War more generally to undertake an armed campaign in the service of their anticommunist, White supremacist goals…Belew’s work suggests that armed violence by militant movements is a far more enduring and deep-rooted part of American politics than conventional understandings admit.
An unquestionably powerful, well-researched and must-read addition to the post-2016 upsurge in analysis and investigation of the foundations of modern fascism. Anyone seeking to understand the origins of the modern far right in the U.S. should include this work at the top of their reading list.
Superbly comprehensive…supplants all journalistic accounts of America’s resurgent white supremacism.
Bring the War Home is a fascinating account of right-wing white power extremists in the United States. Kathleen Belew illuminates this history through staggeringly broad research. A compelling and sometimes shocking read, it is an outstanding contribution to the history of violence.
Kathleen Belew’s vital new book begins in the belly of a Huey helicopter somewhere over South Vietnam. From there she follows with unflinching honesty the violence that violence begat, from the tiny cadre of veterans who decided to bring the war home through Ruby Ridge and Waco to the horror of the Oklahoma City terrorist attack. Over the years I’ve read any number of exemplary histories. Never have I read a more courageous one.
In this major work of scholarly synthesis, Kathleen Belew uses letters, ephemera and ‘zines’ as well as newspaper reports and official documents to reconstruct a dark chapter in American history that has chilling echoes for today.
An engaging account of how and why the modern white power movement emerged from 1975 to 1995…[Belew] offers an unprecedented level of detail, engaging deeply with developments that other authors typically gloss over…Bring the War Home is an excellent resource for anyone interested in the history of America’s white power movement.
If you weren’t afraid of the violent white power movement before reading [this], you will be when you’re done…Belew details fifty years of energetic racist organizing and violent acts…A ringing call to recognize the extent of the threat, in order to better organize an effective response.
Fascinating and riveting, and that archive is truly incredible.
Bring the War Home is a tour de force. An utterly engrossing and piercingly argued history that tracks how the seismic aftershocks of the Vietnam War gave rise to a white power movement whose toxic admixture of violent bigotry, antigovernmental hostility, and racial terrorism helped set the stage for Waco, the Oklahoma City bombing, and, yes, the presidency of Donald Trump.
The connection between hate groups and the military is not new… Bring the War Home charts the path of radical white supremacists from the end of the Vietnam War to the 1995 bombing of a Federal government building in Oklahoma City.
Fascinating…Belew connects seemingly disparate events like the killings at Greensboro, the persecution of Vietnamese fishers in Texas in the early 1980s, and the siege at Ruby Ridge. She shows how hatred of the federal government, fears of communism, and racism all combined in white-power ideology and explains why our responses to the movement have long been woefully inadequate.
04/01/2018
Belew (history, Univ. of Chicago) traces late 20th-century white power violence from the Vietnam War to the Oklahoma City bombing. As white soldiers returned to the United States after tours in Vietnam, some "never stopped fighting" the racialized "other." This study uses contemporary media coverage, government records, and the literature of white power activists to chart how the pain and rage of some white soldiers was transmuted into violence against people of color and revolutionary antistate violence. The first part documents how Vietnam served to unify and militarize disparate white power groups during the 1970s and 1980s; Part 2 looks at how the rhetoric of patriotism shifted in the mid-1980s to one of revolution; while Part 3 considers how government violence at Ruby Ridge, ID, (1992) and Waco, TX, (1993) strengthened white power narratives of martyrdom while mainstream narratives around the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing occluded the white power network that made Timothy McVeigh's action possible. Of particular note is Belew's chapter on the understudied topic of white women's role in the movement. VERDICT This necessary work reminds readers that white violence—on behalf of, and against, the state—has a long and deep history.—Anna J. Clutterbuck-Cook, Massachusetts Historical Soc.
2018-01-09
Belew (History/Univ. of Chicago) pieces together evidence from primary and secondary sources to argue that the racist, anti-government, heavily armed white power movement is not what it seems.As the author shows, many government agencies, law enforcers, and individual citizens have fallen for the myth that the lethal domestic terrorism carried out in the name of white supremacists is the doing of angry lone wolves. On the contrary, she writes, the movement is well-organized and thus more dangerous than previously understood. Belew places these types of individuals under the umbrella of sometimes-violent white power, a group that includes neo-Nazis, radical tax resisters, self-proclaimed Klansmen, members of local militias, separatists who oppose racial integration, and believers in white theologies such as Christian Identity. Although violent white supremacists have never been absent in American history, the author pegs the contemporary movement as growing from the discontent of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, a war that not so incidentally trained young men filled with racial hatred how to kill efficiently, not only with rifles, but also with powerful explosives. Before the war, white supremacists believed they were supporting governmental authority via vigilante justice, meant to marginalize undesirables. But the current white power movement members would prefer to overthrow governments, even at the cost of lives taken. A key concept in understanding the overall movement, writes Belew, is the concept of "leaderless resistance," as exemplified by Timothy McVeigh's insistence that he acted almost entirely alone in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing despite evidence that he considered himself a soldier in a coordinated cell-style underground. The near invisibility of the movement leaders has led directly to the proliferation of the public's belief in the phenomenon of lone wolves, which helps protect the movement from a coordinated takedown.Belew's impressive research effectively supports her hypothesis. A good launching point for even further intensive study.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940171215637 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Tantor Audio |
| Publication date: | 05/29/2018 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
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