Reviews and Comments

Not a review as such, because I don't really know how to give this a star rating. It was more academic than I was expecting, though I shouldn't have been surprised given it's a university press! Among the 'highlights' was chapter 2, with a classification and partial enumeration of far-right groups in Canada. Particularly notable was its explanation of the ideology behind Diagolon, which is much more sinister than I remember from news coverage around the time of the convoy. There's some good analysis through chapters 3, 4, and 5 of how people are attracted to far-right groups and the world-view they build up. The authors see group members as rational actors, even if the underlying facts they lean on are a very one-sided view of reality, often veering into conspiratorial thinking. Chapter 6 is particularly good on the failures of PSC and CSIS, who appear stuck in a post-9/11 focus on Islamist terror and almost willfully ignore the danger of the far-right. Also good to see the authors comment on the term 'lone wolf' -- as they point out, this commonly-used expression assigns far too much 'coolness' to these individuals and is practically only ever used for white attackers -- 'lone actor' is a more helpfully-neutral term.

Really good introduction to antisemitism, from its origins in early Christianity through to today. Lots to think about in its coverage of antisemitism on the left (see Bebel's 'socialism of fools'), including the easy tendency to contrast financial capitalism with a more productivist capitalism. Sensitive handling of the controversy around Corbyn's Labour Party. Good coverage of links between antisemitism and anti-Communism, including how William Lind generated the spectre of 'Cultural Marxism' in 2012 to replace the defunct fear of the Soviet Union. Explains well how White Nationalism and the Christian Right use antisemitism, especially as part of conspiracy theories. Probably the most challenging part (both to read and, presumably, to write) concerns Israel/Palestine and Zionism (including the world of Christian Zionism). I think they did a good job of tackling this, and it's certainly left me with lots to think about. The remaining quarter or so of the book concerns how we fight antisemitism, especially in a way that ties it in with other battles.

Preceding quote aside, I really liked this. Good discussion of the climate emergency, but in the context of the other environmental crises, especially extinctions. Also does a good job of tying in the intersection with social justice concerns. Somewhat critical of capitalism, if not as much as I'd like :) Particularly good on the failures of mainstream Western Buddhism to deal with wider issues, commenting that it can be overly concerned with individual transformation, not structural, and quotes Loyal Rue talking of "cosmological dualism" and "individual salvation". Comments that socially-engaged Buddhism of all sorts really struggles to get support, both people and money. Reminded me a little of reading "McMindfulness". While there's lots to like here, I was disappointed to see no footnotes and no bibliography, which feels weird in a book that leans on, and even cites liberally, the work of others. Also not bowled over by some of the quotes. Maybe I'm overly judgemental, but I think we can write a book about Buddhism and just skip over Chogham Trungpa, and seeing a Paul Kingsnorth quote is always particularly jarring.

There's a really interesting take in here -- that the horror of the monster is actually the horror of loneliness, poverty, and depression, and the associated 'deaths of despair'. The problem is that it means that fair chunks of the book are just really hard to get through, particularly if they remind one of one's own situation (and, as a (former?) Brit, it's hard for them not to). I think one of the appeals of something like Dracula is that it's just so removed from our everyday life that it's a form of escapism. Well, this is pretty much the complete opposite :( . Redeemed to some extent by the relationship between Mask and V, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that I didn't think of giving up, multiple times, not because it's badly written but because it's just so grim.