This was a complex read that often required me to put the book down and reflect on what I had just learned. This is, of course, the highest possible praise I can offer a non-fiction work that takes on the complicated world of organized hate. Even as someone who tries very hard to keep up on all the ways that misogyny, antisemitism, racism and white-supremacy have roots in American culture and politics, this was an eye-opener on many levels.
Levin blends important historical events and trends with her own undercover social media work to really explore white-supremacy and the people who live in a world of hate. The narrative, perhaps inevitably, expands to include all manner of bigotry. The ways that white-supremacy, misogyny and homophobia intertwine is thoroughly analyzed and examined. While many of us may have long suspected that incels, racists and homophobes make up one circle in a Venn diagram, this book gets into the connections that seem to create the relationship between all these manners of hatred. The systems by which that hatred trickles into politics, policy and social movements is also well explored, an especially important lesson for our current times. If you have also wondered who “these people” are, this book will help you understand just that.
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