Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America

Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America is a 2018 book by historian and professor Kathleen Belew. It offers a history of the extreme right wing in the United States, particularly its segment of racists who take up arms to ensure or restore what they regard as a proper social hierarchy with white Christians on top. The book spans from the end of US involvement in the Vietnam War in 1973 to the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, an act committed by white power extremist Timothy McVeigh that marked the deadliest act of terrorism in US history prior to 9/11. Belew shows how the previous generation of white power activism established a narrative, social connections, and tactics that appeared to recede after public revulsion to the Oklahoma City bombing, but was merely awaiting the proper conditions for a reemergence. The book established Belew as a leading expert on the white power movement, a subject she argues has not received enough attention from scholars. She now makes frequent appearances in print, radio, and television connecting recent events, such as the January 6 insurrection, and explaining their historical origins.