Culture Warlords, Talia Lavin
Culture Warlords, Talia Lavin
2 Rating(s)
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Culture Warlords
My Journey Into the Dark Web of White Supremacy

Author: Talia Lavin

Narrator: Talia Lavin

Unabridged: 8 hr 2 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Hachette Books

Published: 10/13/2020

Synopsis

One reporter takes an immersive dive into white supremacy's explosive online presence, exploring the undercurrents of propaganda, racism, misogyny, and history that led us to where we are now. Talia Lavin is every skinhead's worst nightmare: a loud and unapologetic Jewish woman, acerbic, smart, and profoundly antiracist, with the investigative chops to expose the tactics and ideologies of online hatemongers.

Culture Warlords is the story of how Lavin, a frequent target of extremist trolls (including those at Fox News), dove into a byzantine online culture of hate and learned the intricacies of how white supremacy proliferates online. Within these pages, she reveals the extremists hiding in plain sight online: Incels. White nationalists. White supremacists. National Socialists. Proud Boys. Christian extremists. In order to showcase them in their natural habitat, Talia assumes a range of identities, going undercover as a blonde Nazi babe, a forlorn incel, and a violent Aryan femme fatale. Along the way, she discovers a whites-only dating site geared toward racists looking for love, a disturbing extremist YouTube channel run by a fourteen-year-old girl with over 800,000 followers, the everyday heroes of the antifascist movement, and much more. By combining compelling stories chock-full of catfishing and gate-crashing with her own in-depth, gut-wrenching research, she also turns the lens of anti-Semitism, racism, and white power back on itself in an attempt to dismantle and decimate the online hate movement from within.

Shocking, humorous, and merciless in equal measure, Culture Warlords explores some of the vilest subcultures on the Web-and shows us how we can fight back.

About Talia Lavin

Talia Lavin is a freelance writer who has had bylines in the New Yorker, the New Republic, the New York Times Book Review, the Washington Post, the Village Voice, and more. Profoundly anti-racist and a nifty digital native, Lavin possess the online skills needed to go behind the scenes of the digital white supremacist movement (even if that does mean becoming the frequent target of extremist trolls and Fox News staff). She lives in New York City.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Molly on September 09, 2020

This book is...fine? I’m trying to figure out how to review it without disagreeing with the points it makes or its importance. I was all on board with Talia-as-narrator and the importance of a popular, voicey mainstream book about antisemtisim. Ultimately I wasn’t a huge fan of the way the book was......more

Goodreads review by Ayesha on November 08, 2020

I went into this hoping to understand the white supremacist psyche, the detailed steps to radicalization that the web accelerates, snd the means with which organized hate turns opinion into violence, and finances violent campaigns. Generally a clearer view into the vulnerabilities that underly white......more

Goodreads review by Trin on November 26, 2020

I wish this book had been better edited! Who let this go to press so poorly organized that the same terms were defined over and over again, including an instance of "incel" (which had already been defined!) being explained with the same phrase on two facing pages. This was distracting, and a detrime......more

Goodreads review by Brian on May 18, 2021

Like her Jewish ancestors in Nazi-occupied Ukraine, Levin feels (and literally is) targeted by racist hate-mongers – this time American racists. Her response is to use all her journalistic sleuth skills to track them, expose their identities, and destroy their credibility. This is why she gets hate......more

Goodreads review by Dan on November 19, 2020

Lavin’s writing crackles with energy and wit, and I’m very much in her corner politically. But this maddeningly repetitive and bafflingly unstructured book really, really, REALLY needed a good editor.......more

Quotes

USA TODAY, "20 new books to read this fall" and "5 books not to miss!"
Hey Alma, "Alma's Favorite Books for Fall 2020"
Lit Hub, "The Lit Hub 2020 Fall Preview"
Jewish Journal, "25 Inspiring Books Worth Adding to Your Covid 19 Summer Reading List"

"[A] skillful memoir... [with] highly useful insights... Righteous indignation meets techie magic to shine light on one of America's most malignant warts."—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

"In Culture Warlords, Talia Lavin capably leads readers through chilly tunnels of loathing, burrowing deep into dens of violent racism, anti-Semitism, and misogyny. She describes communities of hate and how they're growing with precision, seriousness, and humor. Even as she takes on multiple identities, readers will find in her a steady and often lyrical guide: transparent about her fears, fury, and ever-changing sense of self. Culture Warlords is surely brutal and urgent; it is also unexpectedly delicate."—REBECCA TRAISTER, New York Times bestselling author of All the Single Ladies and Good and Mad

"As someone who has gone undercover and waded through the dark trenches of white supremacy, I know firsthand how jarring it can be to find yourself in the belly of the beast-and the courage it takes to dig your way to the other side. Culture Warlords is a searingly original and breathtaking feat of fearless journalism, and it is required reading for anyone who seeks to understand the nefarious context for the world we live in today."—RON STALLWORTH, New York Times bestselling author of Black Klansman

"Talia Lavin's Culture Warlords is a necessary and urgent read that could not have come at a much better time. You will be astounded at the depths to which Lavin sinks to expose how far and wide white supremacy spreads across both real-life meetings and internet communities. Thoroughly researched and engaging, this debut demonstrates the work of a fearless reporter."—MORGAN JERKINS, NewYork Times bestselling author of This Will Be My Undoing and Wandering in Strange Lands

"Culture Warlords is a shock to the system-an urgent, incendiary work that takes us into the most hate-filled corners of American culture. Having immersed herself, Gonzo-style, in a toxic online world where white supremacy is the norm, Talia Lavin shows us the fun-house mirror reflection of American culture. Lavin writes like her hands are on fire, forcing us to take a hard look at our nation's ugliest truths."—PAMELA COLLOFF, New York Times Magazine and ProPublica

"[Lavin's] notes... are hilarious even as they give us a better understanding of what the more obscure communities of the internet are hiding."—The Lit Hub

"Lavin takes investigative journalism to the next level... This is a heavy read, but an important one."—Library Journal

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