Bringing the War Home
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Product Description
In this first comprehensive comparison of left-wing violence in the United States and West Germany, Jeremy Varon focuses on America's Weather Underground and Germany's Red Army Faction to consider how and why young, middle-class radicals in prosperous democratic societies turned to armed struggle in efforts to overthrow their states. Based on a wealth of primary material, ranging from interviews to FBI reports, this book reconstructs the motivation and ideology of violent organizations active during the 1960s and 1970s. Varon conveys the intense passions of the era - the heat of moral purpose, the depth of Utopian longing, the sense of danger and despair, and the exhilaration over temporary triumphs. Varon's compelling interpretation of the logic and limits of dissent in democratic societies provides striking insights into the role of militancy in contemporary protest movements and has wide implications for the United States' current 'war on terrorism'. Varon explores Weatherman and RAF's strong similarities and the reasons why radicals in different settings developed a shared set of values, languages, and strategies. Addressing the relationship of historical memory to political action, Varon demonstrates how Germany's fascist past influenced the brutal and escalating nature of the West German conflict in the 60s and 70s, as well as the reasons why left-wing violence dropped sharply in the United States during the 1970s. "Bringing the War Home" is a fascinating account of why violence develops within social movements, how states can respond to radical dissent and forms of terror, how the rational and irrational can combine in political movements, and finally how moral outrage and militancy can play both constructive and destructive roles in efforts at social change.
About the Author
Jeremy Varon is Assistant Professor of History at Drew University.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
To describe how one became a Weatherman, Bernardine Dohrn is reported to have said: One day you'll wake up and look out your window. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
To describe how one became a Weatherman, Bernardine Dohrn is reported to have said: One day you'll wake up and look out your window. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Rather academic for my prol tastes (after all the author is a university prof) but readable and understandable account of the USA's Weathermen ( and women) and Germany's Red Army Faction, both groups committed to revolutionary violence and overhrow of the capitalist state. Would like to have read more in depth about the leading characters, their operations and day to day life 'underground' but the book does give an overall picture and tries to fill in the background (Nixon, Vietnam, Cold war) that set these mostly middle class and well educated youngters on their radical and violent path. A serious study, nothing tabloid or sensational.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
The book's first half deals with the Weather Underground in the USA, the second is the RAF in West Germany. I agree with the first reviewer is that it is a tad academic,perhaps because so many of the Weathermen and women (not so many in the RAF)were students themselves.
He draws a clear line in that the Weather Underground had some moral scruples-they never set out to kill people,and the only fatalities of their campaign were three of their own comrades in New York in 1970-and recognised the need to develop links with other groups in US society.The RAF ended up as a support group for their comrades in prison,totally alienated itself from West German society,and had few scruples about threatening or taking civilian life.
Horst Mahler,one of the founders of the RAF (now a leading light of the German far right) observed in his prison cell in the late 1970s that a group that emerged out of horror at US attacks on civilians in Vietnam ended up in 1977 by hijacking a planeload of civilians and threatening to kill them.This book does note such sentiments,but doesn't really explore them.
If you can get a cheap copy,it's worthwhile,but there are better books on both the RAF and the Weathermen.
He draws a clear line in that the Weather Underground had some moral scruples-they never set out to kill people,and the only fatalities of their campaign were three of their own comrades in New York in 1970-and recognised the need to develop links with other groups in US society.The RAF ended up as a support group for their comrades in prison,totally alienated itself from West German society,and had few scruples about threatening or taking civilian life.
Horst Mahler,one of the founders of the RAF (now a leading light of the German far right) observed in his prison cell in the late 1970s that a group that emerged out of horror at US attacks on civilians in Vietnam ended up in 1977 by hijacking a planeload of civilians and threatening to kill them.This book does note such sentiments,but doesn't really explore them.
If you can get a cheap copy,it's worthwhile,but there are better books on both the RAF and the Weathermen.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
9 reviews
28 of 30 people found the following review helpful
tremendous achievement
22 Sep 2004
Format:Paperback
In this well-researched, beautifully written book, Jeremy Varon explores the whole range of factors that gave rise to revolutionary rhetoric and practice in the 1960s and early 1970s, as well as the moral and existential dilemmas that lurk behind any question of political violence. I'm especially impressed by his multi-faceted approach to the material. To cite just a few examples: With his close reading of images and texts from the underground press, he does the work of a cultural historian; where he draws from pyschological models of trauma to help explain RAF's turn toward violence, his work is squarely within the realm of intellectual history; by unearthing a range of neglected sources and examining these groups "from the bottom up," his work takes on the flavor of a social historian; and I especially enjoyed his rich, narrative descriptions, which make the book such a pleasure to read. Finally, this difficult topic is everywhere explored with a keen moral integrity - and I certainly do not share one reviewer's suggestion that the author reveals any kind of right-wing bias! To the contrary, Varon remarks that this book was inspired by the same passion for justice that animated the new left itself. He seems sympathetic to the aims (if not the tactics) of many Sixties activists, and in his conclusion, he underscores the implications that this study has to to some of the most pressing exigencies of our time - terrorism and globalization. Of course, both Weatherman and the RAF come in for some strong criticisms, but ironically, the most damning testimony frequently comes from their former members. (This is especially true of RAF). All in all, this is a tremendous achievement -- an intelligent, rigorous, and elegantly written book that deserves a wide audience from scholars and activists alike.
28 of 33 people found the following review helpful
An Incredible Look Into the Heart of the Anti-War Movement
12 Jun 2004
Format:Hardcover
I bought this book thinking it was a companion to the very good
documentary recently on PBS. Instead I found great detail and
incredible analysis of not just the Weathermen but driving forces
behind the anti-war movemnet. It is really an intelectual history of
the peak of the movement in the late sixties and early seventies.
Most will likely be suprised at the sophistication and
care to avoid physical harm, especially after the Townhouse
explosion. I susect that most of those againt the war at the time saw
the group as drug crazed idiots. The book proves this idea wrong.
But it objectively inspects all aspects of the Weathermen. There is an
interesting comparison to the German radicals, the RAF, who were
much more violent. It is so well researched and written that the roots
of 60's ideology may become apparent to some. I relived much of
my development as a student at that time. The mystique, emotion,
and strong intellectual base is well described. And its foolishness
is put in perspective rather than ridiculed. This is one of the best
books I have ever read.
documentary recently on PBS. Instead I found great detail and
incredible analysis of not just the Weathermen but driving forces
behind the anti-war movemnet. It is really an intelectual history of
the peak of the movement in the late sixties and early seventies.
Most will likely be suprised at the sophistication and
care to avoid physical harm, especially after the Townhouse
explosion. I susect that most of those againt the war at the time saw
the group as drug crazed idiots. The book proves this idea wrong.
But it objectively inspects all aspects of the Weathermen. There is an
interesting comparison to the German radicals, the RAF, who were
much more violent. It is so well researched and written that the roots
of 60's ideology may become apparent to some. I relived much of
my development as a student at that time. The mystique, emotion,
and strong intellectual base is well described. And its foolishness
is put in perspective rather than ridiculed. This is one of the best
books I have ever read.
27 of 32 people found the following review helpful
A Balanced, Thoughtful Book on a Controversial Topic
17 Sep 2004
Format:Hardcover
This is one of the best books you'll ever read on the Sixties or the movements that defined it. In examining one of the most controversial subjects to arise in that era - New Left revolutionary violence - Jeremy Varon not only gives us the first really serious examination of the Weather Underground (most often trashed by sixties activists-turned-scholars), but reveals so much more about the zeitgeist of the era - with all its promise and horror - by coupling it with an analysis of the Red Army Faction in Germany. I don't know how that other reviewer can say there's right-wing bias at work in the book when, in my reading, I see a difficult balancing act that seems to appreciate the utopian ideals of the New Left, takes seriously these radicals' intellectual journeys that led them to violence, but certainly doesn't defend the terrible things done to "bring the war home." It's really a thorough, nuanced book that, fortunately, is written so well, even non-experts will understand the complexities of the time.
I only bought this book after hearing the author speak about it at a book event in New York. Instead of a right-wing or left-wing slant, I heard someone straining to get it right; the reward is that the book does the same.
I only bought this book after hearing the author speak about it at a book event in New York. Instead of a right-wing or left-wing slant, I heard someone straining to get it right; the reward is that the book does the same.
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