Making Sense of the Alt-Right

Thomas J. Main, Marxe School of Public and International Affairs, Baruch College, CUNY:
George Hawley’s fine new book is one of the first accounts of the rise of a new radical political ideology. It’s an important contribution to scholarship about extremism, digital communication, and contemporary American political culture. It’s also a good read, packed with interesting anecdotes about right-wing intellectual infighting and the online community of the alt-right. All serious followers of American politics today will want to read it.

Cas Mudde, University of Georgia:
I am no fan of the term “alt-right,” but an academic study of this much-hyped movement was well overdue, and George Hawley was the only one who could make at least some sense of them. Recommended reading!

Michael Barkun, Syracuse University:
Making Sense of the Alt-Right is clearly written, insightful, and impressively documented, getting the reader genuinely close to the essence of this amorphous movement. I know of no other work that does nearly as good a job of dealing with the alt-right, and I suspect that this will become the "go-to" work on the movement for students, politicians, and serious readers alike.

Lawrence Rosenthal, University of California, Berkeley:
Making Sense of the Alt-Right understands alt-right thinking from the inside. George Hawley's erudition on the subject is evident. The work is supple in tracing out the lineage and development of the movement against the conservative establishment and in explaining its present incarnation in the form of the alt-right.