A deeply disheartening look at American terrorism.
A timely study of domestic terrorism.
Hoffman and Ware, both fellows at the Council on Foreign Relations, maintain that today’s far-right extremists have been gathering momentum since the 1970s. They began work on this book during the height of the pandemic, when “the vilification of Jews, Asians, persons of color, and immigrants, among others, was reaching unprecedented levels.” They deliver a vivid academic history that gives violent events more space than ideas, so readers should expect pages of murderous action and quotes from their perpetrators and supporters. Outraged by opposition to the Vietnam War and the success of the civil rights movement, groups of white racists became convinced that the U.S. government was hopelessly corrupt and dominated by non-whites, leftists, and immigrants, and they believed it had to be destroyed in order to create a new society. With names such as the Aryan Nation and the National Alliance, they gathered weapons and trained, issued manifestos, and occasionally engaged in armed robberies and standoffs with law enforcement. Initially incompetent in dealing with frank violence, the FBI and ATF improved, and by the 1990s, quasi-military organizations had largely vanished in favor of individual lone actors, including Timothy McVeigh. Although far-right extremists were distracted by foreign terrorists after 9/11, the election of America’s first Black president galvanized the fringe, who were further weaponized by social media—and later enraptured by Donald Trump’s surprise victory in 2016. Mass murderers now operate almost weekly, with ideologues perhaps outnumbered by the mentally ill. The authors clearly show how far-right rhetoric has entered the mainstream and how hatred of “government,” worship of firearms, and fear of immigrants win at the polls. Voters in nations around the world have elected autocrats and seen their democracies wither. Readers may wonder if that’s also in the cards for America.
A deeply disheartening look at American terrorism.Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2024
ISBN: 9780231211222
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Columbia Univ.
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
For fans only.
The hoodie-and-shorts-clad Pennsylvania senator blends the political and personal, and often not nicely.
Fetterman’s memoir addresses three major themes. The first—and the one he leads with—is depression and mental illness, which, combined with a stroke and heart trouble, brought him to a standstill and led him to contemplate suicide. The second is his rise to national-level politics from a Rust Belt town; as he writes, he’s carved a path as a contentious player with a populist streak and a dislike for elites. There are affecting moments in his personal reminiscences, especially when he writes of the lives of his working-class neighbors in impoverished southwestern Pennsylvania, its once-prosperous Monongahela River Valley “the most heartbreaking drive in the United States.” It’s the third element that’s problematic, and that’s his in-the-trenches account of daily politics. One frequent complaint is the media, as when he writes of one incident, “I am not the first public figure to get fucked by a reporter, and I won’t be the last. What was eye-opening was the window it gave into how people with disabilities navigate a world that doesn’t give a shit.” He reserves special disdain for his Senate race opponent Mehmet Oz, about whom he wonders, “If I had run against any other candidate…would I have lost? He got beaten by a guy recovering from a stroke.” Perhaps so, and Democratic stalwarts will likely be dismayed at his apparent warmish feelings for Donald Trump and dislike of his own party’s “performative protests.” If Fetterman’s book convinces a troubled soul to seek help it will have done some good, but it’s hard to imagine that it will make much of an impression in the self-help literature. One wonders, meanwhile, at sentiments such as this: “If men are forced to choose between picking their party or keeping their balls, most men are going to choose their balls.”
For fans only.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9780593799826
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
A dauntless, moving account of a kidnapping and the horrors that followed.
Enduring the unthinkable.
This memoir—the first by an Israeli taken captive by Hamas on October 7, 2023—chronicles the 491 days the author was held in Gaza. Confined to tunnels beneath war-ravaged streets, Sharabi was beaten, humiliated, and underfed. When he was finally released in February, he learned that Hamas had murdered his wife and two daughters. In the face of scarcely imaginable loss, Sharabi has crafted a potent record of his will to survive. The author’s ordeal began when Hamas fighters dragged him from his home, in a kibbutz near Gaza. Alongside others, he was held for months at a time in filthy subterranean spaces. He catalogs sensory assaults with novelistic specificity. Iron shackles grip his ankles. Broken toilets produce an “unbearable stink,” and “tiny white worms” swarm his toothbrush. He gets one meal a day, his “belly caving inward.” Desperate for more food, he stages a fainting episode, using a shaving razor to “slice a deep gash into my eyebrow.” Captors share their sweets while celebrating an Iranian missile attack on Israel. He and other hostages sneak fleeting pleasures, finding and downing an orange soda before a guard can seize it. Several times, Sharabi—51 when he was kidnapped—gives bracing pep talks to younger compatriots. The captives learn to control what they can, trading family stories and “lift[ing] water bottles like dumbbells.” Remarkably, there’s some levity. He and fellow hostages nickname one Hamas guard “the Triangle” because he’s shaped like a SpongeBob SquarePants character. The book’s closing scenes, in which Sharabi tries to console other hostages’ families while learning the worst about his own, are heartbreaking. His captors “are still human beings,” writes Sharabi, bravely modeling the forbearance that our leaders often lack.
A dauntless, moving account of a kidnapping and the horrors that followed.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780063489790
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Harper Influence/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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