After reading the hilarious (due to how poorly written it was albeit worrying as how it continues to influence vulnerable Americans) story collection of American Neo-Nazi William Pierce’s the Turner Diaries, I’m looking for more books that inspire political extremists. More so I’m interested in manifesto type books that lay out theory and person viewpoints of the author that defined their own political movement, but fiction is acceptable too. I’m just curious to see how normal people are so willing to abandon established politics for more radical ideas and expand my knowledge of history and politics to better recognize extremisy influence in my daily life.
by Thefartingduck8
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Ayn Rand’s books have somewhat of a cult following amongst a sort of soft-Neo Nazi/hard Libertarians sort (sidenote: here to say that the cult following is mostly due to misunderstanding her philosophy, but oh well).
In terms of the more socially justice minded (or “woke” as their detractors say). Isabel Wilkerson’s books – particularly her newest one – outline the underpinnings of that ideology fairly well. Although, there are people within that group who are reactionaries in a way that diverges from those ideological underpinnings which may render much of what Wilkerson has to say inapplicable to that subgroup that gets the most attention, but that’s more of a personality issue than an ideological one.
In terms of Marxists: obviously, you could go straight to Marx himself, although much of modern Neo-Marxism is more and more loosely based on his original theories. I can think of articles that would be useful here but no other books come to mind, and there are a lot of different flavors of Marxism in the modern day many of which I’m not super well-versed in.
In terms of Capitalists, in general: I highly recommend reading Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations
In terms of social capitalists (this would be the Warren-esque technocratic types who are against the type of corporate hyper-capitalism of the modern US but not capitalism in general), I would recommend Elizabeth Warren’s books themselves but also Jean Jacques Rousseau’s “On Inequality”.
In terms of Anarchists, nothing specifically comes to mind, but I have a friend who is well-versed in Anarchism who I’ve asked for recommendations, so I may edit this comment later with anything he mentions.