The white power movement in America wants a revolution. It has declared all-out war against the federal government and its agents, and has carried out—with military precision—an escalating campaign of terror against the American public. Its soldiers are not lone wolves but are highly organized cadres motivated by a coherent and deeply troubling worldview of white supremacy, anticommunism, and apocalypse. In Bring the War Home, Kathleen Belew gives us the first full history of the movement that consolidated in the 1970s and 1980s around a potent sense of betrayal in the Vietnam War and made tragic headlines in the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building. 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.

In this first comprehensive comparison of left-wing violence in the United States and West Germany, Jeremy Varon focuses on America's Weather Underground and Germany's Red Army Faction to consider how and why young, middle-class radicals in prosperous democratic societies turned to armed struggle in efforts to overthrow their states. Based on a wealth of primary material, ranging from interviews to FBI reports, this book reconstructs the motivation and ideology of violent organizations active during the 1960s and 1970s. Varon conveys the intense passions of the era--the heat of moral purpose, the depth of Utopian longing, the sense of danger and despair, and the exhilaration over temporary triumphs. Varon's compelling interpretation of the logic and limits of dissent in democratic societies provides striking insights into the role of militancy in contemporary protest movements and has wide implications for the United States' current "war on terrorism." Varon explores Weatherman and RAF's strong similarities and the reasons why radicals in different settings developed a shared set of values, languages, and strategies. Addressing the relationship of historical memory to political action, Varon demonstrates how Germany's fascist past influenced the brutal and escalating nature of the West German conflict in the 60s and 70s, as well as the reasons why left-wing violence dropped sharply in the United States during the 1970s. Bringing the War Home is a fascinating account of why violence develops within social movements, how states can respond to radical dissent and forms of terror, how the rational and irrational can combine in political movements, and finally how moral outrage and militancy can play both constructive and destructive roles in efforts at social change.

It is not a matter of argument among the vast majority of scholars, but of demonstrable fact. White supremacy includes both individual prejudice and, for instance, the long history of the disproportionate incarceration of people of color. It describes a legal system still predisposed towards racial inequality even when judge, counsel, and jurors abjure racism at the individual level. It is collective and individual. It is old and immediate. Some white supremacists turn to violence, but there are also a lot of people who are individually white supremacist-some openly so-and reject violence. This Field Guide proposes that a better understanding of hate groups, white supremacy, and the ways that racism and patriarchy have braided into our laws and systems can help people to tell, and understand, better stories. .

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The war worked to radicalize and arm paramilitary groups in the post–Vietnam War period. It brought racism, military training, weapons proficiency, and a readiness to continue fighting home with many veterans. #2 The Vietnam War was also distinct from other wars in that it was a conflict with a local, civil conflict and an enemy comprised of highly motivated guerrillas and partisan soldiers. This created high levels of despair among the troops. #3 The Vietnam War completely changed the way Americans viewed their military. It was the first real test of an integrated army, and the racial violence that plagued soldiers of color in combat and at home signaled the incompleteness of this transformation. #4 The discourse surrounding the Vietnam War shifted in the 1980s to emphasize the mistreatment of veterans by the government and by civil society. The idea that the nation had wrongly rejected, failed to honor, and impugned veterans created an emphasis on healing and memorialization.

The politically engaged work of Martha Rosler is fascinating and provocative; this wide-ranging survey brings timely insights at a moment of resurgence for political activism and feminism.