Bursts__ reviewed Bring the War Home by Kathleen Belew
Filling In Some Gaps
4 stars
Just a quick review here. I've really been appreciating this book: very readable, clear language, interesting history. This really fills in the gaps in my knowledge of the post-WWII fascist movement with a focus on Louis Beam and the 3rd - 4th waves of the KKK, taking momentum from the "stabbed in the back" narrative of the US experience of the Vietnam War, rampant fear mongering around communism, popular white perspectives of overreach by the civil rights and various liberation movements of the long '60s, and the flood of weaponry and tools of war into the hands of an increasingly anti-State white nationalist movement. There's an interesting focus on groups like the KKKK and the uniting of Klan and Neo-Nazi groups during and after the Greensboro Massacre of 1979, the Order and its overlaps with Aryan Nations, National Alliance, the failed Operation Red Dog invasion of Dominica, ties between white …
Just a quick review here. I've really been appreciating this book: very readable, clear language, interesting history. This really fills in the gaps in my knowledge of the post-WWII fascist movement with a focus on Louis Beam and the 3rd - 4th waves of the KKK, taking momentum from the "stabbed in the back" narrative of the US experience of the Vietnam War, rampant fear mongering around communism, popular white perspectives of overreach by the civil rights and various liberation movements of the long '60s, and the flood of weaponry and tools of war into the hands of an increasingly anti-State white nationalist movement. There's an interesting focus on groups like the KKKK and the uniting of Klan and Neo-Nazi groups during and after the Greensboro Massacre of 1979, the Order and its overlaps with Aryan Nations, National Alliance, the failed Operation Red Dog invasion of Dominica, ties between white nationalists and the CIA-adjacent arming and training of the Contras and other anti-communist paramilitary forces and a whole lot more packed in this book. Off-hand, my criticisms are few as I approach the end of the book. "Bring The War Home" could use some editing, a few facts are covered multiple times in different sentences in a way that made me wonder if I hadn't just read that. Also, there is a heavy reliance on coverage of FBI / ATF / DEA & DOJ legal pursuit (alongside the SPLC, whose lawsuits on behalf of victims were deeper and more numerous than I knew) but not a lot (besides the Vietnamese immigrant community resistance in Gulf Texas) of popular resistance covered. Maybe that's not the scope of the book. But I am definitely appreciative of the work that Belew put into this book, and the thoughtfulness of digging into the motivations (where available and documented) of these racist pieces of shit. Know your enemy.