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Loading... Them: Adventures with Extremists (edition 2002)by Jon Ronson
Work InformationThem: Adventures with Extremists by Jon Ronson
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Does a good job of humanizing the (mostly American) fringe, including revealing facts about 'Ruby Ridge' that I never knew, while not loosing sight of that fact that these people are weird, very weird, and that's just for starters. Ronson succeeds in revealing how e.g. Alex Jones' world view might make sense to him and his followers --in other words, they are not 'just crazy'-- while not loosing sight of the fact that they are, well, a bit crazy (in the colloquial sense.) I can't decide if he was playing dumb for rhetorical purposes, or he did zero research. The book is on the edge of irresponsible because of how clueless the narrator is about things he could have found out by reading anything about Nazism, the Klan, or any other group he discusses. He ended up giving Alex Jones a lot of press, which turned out badly for everyone. 2020 UPDATE: Totally forgot I'd read this four years ago. I stand by my review below, with the exception of the last line. Ronson somehow manages to ferret out some of the most fascinating people, that I have to keep reading his stuff. ORIGINAL 2016 REVIEW: I'm giving this one the benefit of the doubt with three stars. It's like it's not quite sure if it wants to be funny or poignant or eye-opening. In the end, it's a little bit of all three. I've read a couple of Ronson books now, and I have a few more shelved to read, but I'm finding my biggest frustration is that his books really don't seem to go anywhere. They're more anecdotes that move to different ones before looping back to the earlier one before jumping into a third. There never seems to be an official conclusion, more of an abandonment of each story. Let's see what the next one holds. It may be my last. no reviews | add a review
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A wide variety of extremist groups -- Islamic fundamentalists, neo-Nazis -- share the oddly similar belief that a tiny shadowy elite rule the world from a secret room. In Them, journalist Jon Ronson has joined the extremists to track down the fabled secret room. As a journalist and a Jew, Ronson was often considered one of "Them" but he had no idea if their meetings actually took place. Was he just not invited. Them takes us across three continents and into the secret room. Along the way he meets Omar Bakri Mohammed, considered one of the most dangerous men in Great Britain, PR-savvy Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard Thom Robb, and the survivors of Ruby Ridge. He is chased by men in dark glasses and unmasked as a Jew in the middle of a Jihad training camp. In the forests of northern California he even witnesses CEOs and leading politicians -- like Dick Cheney and George Bush -- undertake a bizarre owl ritual. Ronson's investigations, by turns creepy and comical, reveal some alarming things about the looking-glass world of "us" and "them." Them is a look at the lives and minds of extremists. Are the extremists onto something? Or is Jon Ronson becoming one of them? No library descriptions found. |
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I learned something, but not sure I wanted to... ( )