Culture Warlords

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Culture Warlords
Culture Warlords - Talia Lavin.jpg
Author Tal Lavin
LanguageEnglish
Subject White supremacy
GenreNon-fiction
Published2020, Hachette Books
Media typePrint, e-book, audiobook
Pages288 pages
ISBN 978-0-30684-643-4
Website hachettebooks.com/titles/talia-lavin/culture-warlords/9780306846434/

Culture Warlords: My Journey into the Dark Web of White Supremacy is a non-fiction book by Talia Lavin. [1] [2] In the book, Lavin describes a project of inventing online personae that allow her to meet and expose fascist white supremacists who gather in online chatrooms and websites; the book also traces the historic roots of these contemporary phenomena.

Contents

Time named Culture Warlords one of the 100 must-read books of 2020.

Publication history

Lavin, who is Jewish and the grandchild of Holocaust survivors, [3] became motivated to investigate the topic following white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017, where "Jews will not replace us!" was a rallying cry. [4] This may be in reference to the white genocide conspiracy theory.

In March 2019, Lavin sold Culture Warlords to editor Paul Whitlatch at Hachette Books. [1] [5] It was published on October 13, 2020. [6] [7]

Content

Lavin invented online personae, which allowed her to gain entry to white supremacist websites and chatrooms, gathering information for journalists and anti-fascist activists. The book describes these present-day encounters while also tracing “the distant and near history of the alt-right, from the medieval European blood libel to Henry Ford’s mainstreaming of anti-Semitic ideas to Gamergate and the stories of a radicalized adolescent YouTuber.” [3]

Reception

Publishers Weekly called the book a "bracing and wide-ranging look at the internet as a breeding ground for racism and misogyny. Readers with a strong stomach for hateful ideology will find plenty of harrowing takeaways." [6] Kirkus gave Culture Warlords a starred review [8] and USA Today named it number one in the “hottest new book releases” for the week it was published. [9]

Writing in The New York Times , Jennifer Szalai said, "One of the marvels of this furious book is how insolent and funny Lavin is." [10] In her review for the Boston Globe , Kate Tuttle notes that while other books treat similar material, Lavin's work "feels particularly insightful, perhaps because she understands so deeply both the modern idiom in which these bigots operate today and their historic roots in race science, eugenics, and anti-Semitism." [11]

Time named Culture Warlords one of the 100 must-read books of 2020. [12]

Related Research Articles

White supremacy is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White supremacy has roots in the now-discredited doctrine of scientific racism and was a key justification for European colonialism.

Black supremacy or black supremacism is a racial supremacist belief which maintains that black people are inherently superior to people of other races.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zionist Occupation Government conspiracy theory</span> Antisemitic conspiracy theory

The Zionist occupation government, Zionist occupational government or Zionist-occupied government (ZOG), sometimes also referred to as the Jewish occupational government (JOG), is an antisemitic conspiracy theory claiming Jews secretly control the governments of Western states. It is a contemporary variation on the centuries-old belief in an international Jewish conspiracy. According to believers, a secret Zionist organization controls international banks, and through them the governments, in order to collude against white, Christian, or Islamic interests.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kevin MacDonald (evolutionary psychologist)</span> American psychologist and white supremacist

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VDARE is an American far-right website promoting opposition to immigration to the United States. It is associated with white supremacy, white nationalism, and the alt-right. Anti-Immigration in the United States: A Historical Encyclopedia describes VDARE as "one of the most prolific anti-immigration media outlets in the United States" and states that it is "broadly concerned with race issues in the United States". Established in 1999, the website's editor is Peter Brimelow, who once stated that "whites built American culture" and that "it is at risk from non-whites who would seek to change it".

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Opponents of the alt-right have not reached a consensus on how to deal with it. Some opponents emphasized "calling out" tactics, labelling the alt-right with terms like "racist", "sexist", "homophobic", and "white supremacist" in the belief that doing so would scare people away from it. Many commentators urged journalists not to refer to the alt-right by its chosen name, but rather with terms like "neo-Nazi". There was much discussion within U.S. public discourse as to how to avoid the "normalization" of the alt-right. The activist group Stop Normalizing, which opposes the normalization of terms like alt-right, developed the "Stop Normalizing Alt Right" Chrome extension. The extension went viral shortly after the release of Stop Normalizing's website. The extension changes the term "alt-right" on webpages to "white supremacy". The extension and group were founded by a New York-based advertising and media professional under the pseudonym George Zola.

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References

  1. 1 2 "Culture Warlords: My Journey into the Dark Web of White Supremacy". Library Journal . Retrieved October 10, 2020.
  2. Paltrowitz, Darren (July 21, 2020). "25 Inspiring Books Worth Adding to Your COVID-19 Summer Reading List". Jewish Journal . Retrieved October 12, 2020.
  3. 1 2 Kellogg, Carolyn (October 27, 2020). "An Expedition Deep Into an Underworld of Online Hate". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved October 28, 2020.
  4. Hasan, Maham (October 13, 2020). ""A Car Crash Between Nicholas Sparks and Mein Kampf": In the Tangled World of Far-Right Chatrooms, White Supremacists Are Getting Organized". Vanity Fair . Retrieved October 13, 2020.
  5. "Talia Lavin sells book on white supremacists; Mira Jacob on the inspirations behind "Good Talk"". Book Forum. March 26, 2019.
  6. 1 2 "Culture Warlords: My Journey Into the Dark Web of White Supremacy". Publishers Weekly. October 8, 2020. Retrieved October 9, 2020.
  7. VanDenburgh, Barbara (September 23, 2020). "20 new books to read this fall, from Mariah Carey, Jonathan Lethem, Megan Rapinoe, more". USA Today . Retrieved October 10, 2020.
  8. "Culture Warlords". Kirkus Reviews. July 28, 2020. Retrieved October 12, 2020.
  9. VanDenburgh, Barbara. "5 books not to miss: 'Culture Warlords' by Talia Lavin, P. Djèlí Clark's 'Ring Shout'". USA Today . Retrieved October 10, 2020.
  10. Szalai, Jennifer (October 14, 2020). "An Undercover Trip into the Rageful Worlds of Incels and White Supremacists". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved October 14, 2020.
  11. Tuttle, Kate (October 22, 2020). "A writer infiltrates the world of white nationalism in 'Culture Warlords'". The Boston Globe . Retrieved October 23, 2020.
  12. "'Culture Warlords' Is One of the 100 Must-Read Books of 2020". Time. Retrieved November 11, 2020.