At first this seems as though it might be a sequel to Apocalypse Culture with an emphasis on “last days” cults, perhaps a written extension of Parfrey’s “Cult Rapture” art exhibit in Seattle. In fact, although there are chapters on real “cults,” such as the followers of Indian God-man Sai Baba and the much-ridiculed Unarius flying-saucer contactee group, much of this book has little, if anything, to do with any type of cult.
The majority of this book reprints Parfrey’s writing that has appeared in such diverse publications as the Village Voice, the San Diego Reader and Hustler. The non-Parfrey material includes Jonathan Haynes’ treatise “The Sex Economy of Nazi Germany,” the weirdest, if not the most bizarre, chapter in the whole book. Haynes is a white supremacist who is convinced that there is a Jewish conspiracy to stop him from getting laid. He gets so mad about it that he kills a hairdresser (for creating fake Aryans by turning hair blonde) and then a guy who sells blue-tinted contact lenses. Before he did this, he sent Parfrey a screed about the Nazis’ policy of government-run Free Love. Parfrey reprints this along with a rundown on the antics of the Cult of One. Also included are chapters on the big-eyed children painters (Walter and Margaret Keane), shock treatment, and James Shelby Downard’s hyperparanoiac Mason-directed mail-order bride exposé, a critique of anti-masculinist Andrea Dworkin, a G.G. Allin interview, and a chapter on human oddities that contains many previously published accounts of questionable authenticity that seem to be repeated solely for the shock value. The second half of the book turns into Militia Rapture as Parfrey turns his attention to right-wing spokesman Bo Gritz, SWAT training camps, Waco conspiracy theorist and hornets-nest-stirrer Linda Thompson, and a low-down on the Oklahoma-bombing conspiracy evidence. TC

Publisher: Feral House
Paperback: 371 pages
Illustrated

The Continental twins of evil—fascism and racism—are back for another bite. “Charts the growth of fascism through the decades following the Second World War to its present-day resurgence in the aftermath of the Cold War. It paints a somber picture of Europeans threatened by racist politics and terrorism, and struggling to come to terms with the problems of living in a multiracial society.” Some issues covered are the rewriting of history, the rise of the new right, secret service corruption, and extreme-right terrorism in Italy. GR

Publisher: Columbia University
Paperback: 265 pages

“The selected passages provide a vivid picture of sexual excess and debauchery in a cruel and violent society.”

Publisher: Dedalus
Paperback: 356 pages

“Millions of words have already been written about the Persian Gulf War. But only in this volume will the critical reader find a coherent analysis of the Gulf crisis at every stage of its development, from the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait on August 2, 1990, to the genocidal air and ground assault mounted by U.S. military forces in January and February 1991, and the postwar explosions in the gulf region… The Workers League approached the Persian Gulf War with implacable political hostility to American imperialism and to the White House criminals and Pentagon gangsters who orchestrated this slaughter of the Iraqi people. Genuine objectivity consists not in adopting a posture of being ‘above the battle’ but in showing the social and class forces expressed in such a crisis as the U.S. drive to war in the Persian Gulf.”

Publisher: Labor Relations
Paperback: 450 pages

“The life and legendary exploits of Frederick Townsend Ward, an American adventurer and mercenary in 19th-century China… A courageous leader who became the first American mandarin, Frederick Townsend Ward won crucial victories for the Emperor of China during the Taiping Rebellion, history’s bloodiest civil war.”

Publisher: Random House
Paperback: 366 pages
Illustrated

This is an encyclopedia of mankind’s greatest and most infamous demagogues. They’re all here, neatly arranged in alphabetical order, with a concise yet detailed summary of their lives. Some names most readers would not expect to see, such as Ikhenaton, while others have almost become household words. For people interested in history’s most infamous and powerful tyrants, this book will more than fit the bill as a valuable reference tool. JB

Publisher: Facts on File
Hardback: 340 pages
Illustrated

“Isaac Olaleye thoroughly explores the varied beliefs for racial differences—both physically and psychologically—through biblical references and scientific research.”

Publisher: Winston-Derek
Hardback: 186 pages
Illustrated

The story of 19th-century Green politics, which started with the realization that the Industrial Revolution wasn’t the bringer of Utopia. Reformers still believed in the idea of progress and so tried to counteract the forced urbanization of the working-class . William Morris and others proposed a Utopian vision of industrialized villages. SC

Publisher: Harvester-Sussex
Hardback: 225 pages

The lost history of a movement generally thought not to have an early history. From the struggle against the German anti-gay legislation of the 1870s to the destruction of homosexual groups by Naziism and Stalinism. With abundant references to well-known gay pioneers, their defenders and their enemies. AK

Publisher: Times Change
Paperback: 121 pages
Illustrated

This simplistic bit of Bookchinist propaganda is concerned with the re-emergence of fascism in the late 20th century, and with the use of environmentalism as a right-wing cause. The Right’s tendency to use ecology has its historical roots in 19th-century romanticism and the Third Reich, and continues to the present day. The authors use the German historical model as a mechanism to study the role of ecology as a political tool, meanwhile propagating their vision of Social Ecology. SC

Publisher: AK
Paperback: 76 pages