Them: Adventures with Extremists FROM OUR EDITORS
The Barnes & Noble Review
Author Jon Ronson takes readers on an unusually spirited journey through the lives and experiences of some of the world's most hate-filled people in Them: Adventures with Extremists. Normally, hate mongers such as Omar Bakri Mohammed ("bin Laden's Man in England") and Thom Robb (grand wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan), among others, wouldn't warrant smiles. But the adventures Ronson shares with them are constantly amusing and often capture these characters in moments filled with surprising amounts of levity. Spending years of his life researching and traveling with the world's extremists, fundamentalists, white supremacists, and conspiracy theorists, Ronson hears tales of the suspicious Bilderberg Group, which is alleged to secretly manipulate all world events from a tiny, hidden room. Ronson joins in the search for these fabled Bilderbergers and finds more than he bargained for along the way.
Each character Ronson encounters adds more depth and insight to the conspiracy story, until Ronson is forced to risk everything for the answers his journalistic integrity (and readers!) demand. Who knew "the bad guys" could be so much fun? Bringing everything into proper perspective is a revised preface and first chapter, highlighting a final conversation Ronson shares with Omar Bakri after his post-9/11 arrest. (Eric Zeman)
Eric Zeman lives in West Orange, New Jersey.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
A wide variety of extremist groups -- Islamic fundamentalists, neo-Nazis -- share the oddly similar belief that a tiny shadowy elite rule the world from a secret room. In Them, journalist Jon Ronson has joined the extremists to track down the fabled secret room. As a journalist and a Jew, Ronson was often considered one of "Them" but he had no idea if their meetings actually took place. Was he just not invited? Them takes us across three continents and into the secret room. Along the way he meets Omar Bakri Mohammed, considered one of the most dangerous men in Great Britain, PR-savvy Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard Thom Robb, and the survivors of Ruby Ridge. He is chased by men in dark glasses and unmasked as a Jew in the middle of a Jihad training camp. In the forests of northern California he even witnesses CEOs and leading politicians -- like Dick Cheney and George Bush -- undertake a bizarre owl ritual.
Ronson's investigations, by turns creepy and comical, reveal some alarming things about the looking-glass world of "us" and "them." Them is a deep and fascinating look at the lives and minds of extremists. Are the extremists onto something? Or is Jon Ronson becoming one of them?
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
U.K. journalist Ronson offers a look into the world of political, cultural and religious "extremists" who dwell at the edges of popular culture and the conspiracy theorists who love them. His only criteria for groups' inclusion as extremists is "that they have been called extremists by others," which may explain why the Anti-Defamation League is profiled along with the modern-day KKK, radical Northern Ireland Protestant spokesperson Dr. Ian Paisley and a former BBC sportscaster who believes the world is ruled by a race of alien lizards. The best as well as most timely and unsettling of these essays follows Omar Bakri Mohammed, a radical Islamic militant, on his often bumbling effort to organize British Muslims into a jihad. (Bakri was arrested after September 11.) Ronson's journalism is motivated less out of a duty to inform the public than a desire to satisfy his own curiosity. At the heart of the book is Ronson's quest to find the Bilderberg Group, a secret cabal said to meet once a year to set the agenda of the "New World Order." Fortunately for the reader, his efforts lead somewhere: an informant tracks Bilderberg to a golf resort in Portugal; later, a prominent British politician and Bilderberg founder discusses it on the record. Once viewed up close through Ronson's light, ironic point of view, these "extremists" appear much less scary than their public images would suggest. It is how he reveals the all-too-real machinations of Western society's radical fringe and its various minions that makes this enjoyable work rather remarkable. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
British journalist and filmmaker Ronson spent the last five years with extremists: religious fundamentalists in Great Britain, Texas, and Cameroon; white supremacists in Arkansas, Michigan, and Idaho; and New World Order conspiracy chasers in Portugal and California. Despite their differences, all seem to believe that the world is controlled by an elite group known as "them." Although one may not find, say, the Ku Klux Klan funny on the surface, Ronson, well known for his "Human Zoo" column in the Guardian, makes each essay engaging by pointing out the irony of it all and accentuating the characters' foibles. He also presents their humanity the same humanity they would deny to others. Yet between the lines of satire, the extremists are unmasked for what they really are. They come off, above all, as mundane. This book was accompanied in Britain by a five-part TV documentary, The Secret Rulers of the World. Recommended for all academic and public libraries. Lee Arnold, Historical Soc. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
A picaresque journey into the wonderland of delusional fanatics, often scary, yet wildly funny. Ronson, a British journalist and documentary filmmaker (Channel 4's The Secret Rulers of the World) explores the world of religious and political extremists, from Omar Bakri Mohammed, a hapless militant Islamic fundamentalist cheerfully trying to organize a jihad in North London, to David Icke, ranting that the world is run by a global elite descended from a race of extraterrestrial 12-foot lizards. (The response to Icke of the Anti-Defamation League, ever alert for anti-Semitism disguised by code words, suggests that paranoia is not confined to the lunatic fringes.) Most encounters, such as with an Arkansas Ku Klux Klan leader who eschews use of the "N" word (in public), or with Dr. Ian Paisley preaching his conspiracy theories in Cameroon, read like a comic novel, as the deadpan Ronson lets his subjects skewer themselves with their own words. Less laughable is his visit with Randy Weaver's daughter Rachel, which leads him to conclude that the killings at Ruby Ridge were made possible by the demonization of the Weavers as white supremacists. A subsequent brief meeting with skinheads at the Aryan Nation in Idaho is one of the most chilling episodes here. From his wanderings among extremists, Ronson learns that their most consistent belief is that the world is run by a cabal of international financiers and politicians, mostly Jews, known as the Bilderberg group, who periodically gather in a secret room to determine the planet's fate. Ronson's mission, to track down the secret rulers of the world and discover who they are and what they actually do, is the stuff of high comedy, and what he findsis about as sinister as a frat party. Ronson's eye for the telling detail and his gift for capturing hilarious dialogue make this an entertaining read, but laughs aside, this is serious and thought-provoking stuff, and likely to nettle left, right, and some in the middle too.
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