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Contemporary Voices of White Nationalism in America. Edited by Carol M. Swain and Russ Nieli. (Cambridge and other cities: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. xiv, 298. Paper, $20.00, ISBN 0-521-01693-2; cloth, $55.00, ISBN 0-521-81673-4.)
The ten voices of contemporary white nationalism captured in this volume represent, in the words of Carol M. Swain and Russ Nieli, "the most serious ideological challenge to the ideal of an integrated and racially pluralist America since the passing of the Jim Crow order" in the 1950s and 1960s (p. vii). The interviewees are articulate and Internet-savvy. They reflect a broad spectrum of the racist Right. Some of the names are familiar: David Duke, for one, as well as Matthew Hale, the World Church of the Creator leader, and the late William Pierce, founder of the National Alliance and author of The Turner Diaries. There is a lapsed Mormon. There is a woman. Despite the prevalence of conspiratorial anti-Semitism in white nationalist thought, even a few Jewish intellectuals appear in the mix. The common denominator running throughout is a fierce belief in genetic-based theories of racial difference and a determination to launch a white consciousness movement.
Generally speaking, these individuals have also followed similar pathways into racialism (a term they prefer over racism). In their view nothing has been right since Martin Luther King Jr....