Book Review: Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump by David Neiwert

Book Review:

Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump

Author: David Neiwert

David Neiwert is a political journalist who has spent a great deal of time following the extreme right in America, and it shows in this book. 

The main strength of this book is its documentation style. Written in a chronological order, this book documents the radical right in America from the 1990s, examining how conspiracy theorists created an alternative world where facts could be dismissed to further their own political agendas, and subsequently how the age of the internet helped these alternative universes spread across the entire nation of America, and potentially across the whole world.

Coming from a journalistic background, Neiwert does an excellent job of documenting what happened, in what order, and giving great detail about the individuals involved in each event. The book can serve as a reference tool for those studying the alternative right, as each chapter documents a few linked events in great detail.

However the journalistic background of Neiwert may also serve to explain the biggest drawback of the book, it lacks critical analysis. Their are flashes of analysis in the book, but so many times as I read it I found myself thinking "this would be an excellent moment to delve into why something was happening, not just what happened.

Over and over again these moments come up, when as a reader I felt myself having to fill in some blanks, yes the  media coverage of some white terrorists failed to acknowledge their interest in far-right movements, but why? Fox news understandably is blatantly attempting to distance any terror attacks from right-wing philosophy, but why would MSNBC, CNN and other major networks follow suit? The readers are left to fill in the blanks on this. And throughout I found myself asking "so are they just racist? Or is their something more going on here?" Undoubtedly their are openly racist individuals in society, but the sheer scale of the Tea parties success in the wake of the Obama election left me wondering, what was attracting people to this movement? Surely it wasn't just racism, but the book never delves into this critical analysis.

The book really kicks into gear when it begins discussing the rise of Trump, which surprisingly only comes about halfway through the book. Discussions of "gamergate", academic racists and the means to which Trump united a coalition of racists, misogynists and bigots to support him into a legitimate and successful campaign to become President are legitimately fascinating, and here we see a little of the analysis the first half of the book sorely misses.

All in all, this book is a well-written documentation of the Alt-Right in America from the 1990s through to the mid 2010s. It offers a great deal of information, however leaves a lot of the analysis and interpretation of the information up to the reader, perhaps this was intentional, perhaps not. Ultimately, I would recommend this book for scholars in the area of the far-right, however for those looking for a captivating read about the most controversial President in the history of the US, perhaps something like Fire and Fury would be more suitable.