Alt-Right

‘An urgently needed dose of clarity for anyone hoping to understand the twists and turns of far right politics beyond the Khakis and Tiki torches’ – Mark Bray, historian and author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook

This book is a vital guide to understanding the Alt-Right – the white nationalist, misogynist, far-right movement that rose to prominence during Donald Trump’s successful election campaign in the United States. It looks at the support for this reactionary network, arguing that while Trump is in office and the far-right grows across Europe, we need to gain a deeper understanding of the movement’s philosophy, history and role in politics today.

While the movement appears to have burst out of nowhere, Mike Wendling has been tracking the Alt-Right for years. He reveals the role of technological utopians, reactionary philosophers, the notorious 4chan and 8chan bulletin boards, and a range of bloggers, vloggers and tweeters, highlighting the extreme ideas which underpin the movement’s thought.

This is an analysis of what the Alt-Right stands for and who its followers and leaders are. Including exclusive interviews with members of the movement and evidence linking extremists with terror attacks and hate crimes, it is clear that despite its high-profile support, the movement’s lack of a coherent base and its contradictory tendencies is already leading to its downfall.

Mike Wendling is a Senior Broadcast Journalist at the BBC. He works in the BBC’s Digital Current Affairs department, where he is a blogger and editor of BBC Trending. He produced the BBC radio series America’s Own Extremists. He has also presented documentaries for Radio 4 and the BBC World Service on Native Americans and the Black Lives Matter movement. He is the author of Alt-Right: From 4chan to the White House (Pluto, 2018).