front cover of Bring the War Home
Bring the War Home
The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America
Kathleen Belew
Harvard University Press, 2018

A Guardian Best Book of the Year

“A gripping study of white power…Explosive.”
New York Times


“Helps explain how we got to today’s alt-right.”
—Terry Gross, Fresh Air


The white power movement in America wants a revolution.

Returning to a country ripped apart by a war they felt they were not allowed to win, a small group of Vietnam veterans and disgruntled civilians who shared their virulent anti-communism and potent sense of betrayal concluded that waging war on their own country was justified. The command structure of their covert movement gave women a prominent place. They operated with discipline, made tragic headlines in Waco, Ruby Ridge, and Oklahoma City, and are resurgent under President Trump. Based on a decade of deep immersion in previously classified FBI files and on extensive interviews, Bring the War Home tells the story of American paramilitarism and the birth of the alt-right.

“A much-needed and troubling revelation… 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.”
The Nation

“Fascinating… 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.”
Slate

“Superbly comprehensive…supplants all journalistic accounts of America’s resurgent white supremacism.”
—Pankaj Mishra, The Guardian

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