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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wry, impassioned, frightening and thoroughly readable, 19 Nov 2002
Who would've predicted it? I imagine that's just about as pertinent a question as can be applied to Them. Who would have predicted that a 5-year documentary of myriad extremist groups would culminate, at least if not internally, then externally, in the most violent of thematic bookends: the World Trade Centre horror? Who could have predicted that Jon Ronson's strange acquaintanceship with Omar Bakri who, last century, proclaimed himself Osama Bin Laden's man in Britain, would, in 2001, take on such fearsome new dimensions. I don't think, certainly, that Jon Ronson would have predicted it. But, possibly, the extremists Jon adventures with in this wry-yet-shocking book would have guessed. Because, as this series of fair-handed portraits continually demonstrates, extremist groups are reacting against something. They may have wrong the level or the participants (individual, or group, sector, race) of a conspiracy, but they do not make up the whole story. There are conspiracy theories because there are conspiracies. Extremists shout and bawl, often in distasteful and, frankly, bizarre terms about conspiracies, only because people are apt to conspire.The book is split into chapters, which, usually, take one extremist group at a time. Occasionally several chapters link the threads of one conspiracy, but essentially Ronson provides digestible snapshots of a wide range of beliefs and fears. The buffet approach can possibly leave you short-changed in terms of full-blown analysis, but the book isn't really concerned with providing that. Instead, what the reader gets is an extremely entertaining read - Ronson being about as charming and witty guide as any tourist could want, especially, it soon becomes clear, when traversing some fairly odd ground - but also one that allows the humanity of the extremists to be viewed. As individuals, these are very often personable enough people. They are far from crazed, even if more frequently they stick with worrying fastness to their eccentricity and their sometimes indefensible beliefs. But it is not just the extremists who are being revealed here. The British press, the countless groups proclaiming to protect New York Jews from anti-Semitism, the financiers, the entrepreneurs, the businessmen and politicians of the (secretly world-ruling, according the conspiracists; privately world-benefiting, according to them) Bilderberg group, all come in for the sort of gentle, self-effacing, but often deceptively impassioned probing Ronson specialises in. He doesn't ever become one of them, though he worries about it, and I doubt many of the readers of this book will either, but all of us together, author and audience alike, are, by the final pages, far slower to jump to conclusions and far quicker to accept that They might have a bit of a point.
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