Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America

White power activists are often seen as a tiny, disorganized fringe who might occasionally cause trouble, but who lack the cohesion to pose a real problem to society. The central argument of Kathleen Belew’s book is that in the period between the end of the Vietnam War and the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, white power really did coalesce into a bona fide social movement, one with astonishingly high numbers of active members and associates and an important, if still relatively small, role to play in American politics and society. The Vietnam War laid the foundation for this movement, with veterans believing themselves (in some cases with good reason) to have been betrayed by their government and ignored, if not outright disrespected, by the civilian population. In addition, veterans returned to a society transformed by a host of social and economic upheavals. Veterans, and non-veterans who shared some of their grievances, first found community in paramilitary activity, perpetuating the wartime bonds of masculine fellowship. Various groups then built ties with their community over shared grievances to win more mainstream support for their cause. Their stances on abortion, feminism, gay rights, immigration, and federal overreach appealed to many, helping them to spread their influence even as relatively few adopted their message of all-out war against the state.