Following are brief reviews of some of the current books I have been reading over the summer of 2023:

1.)  America’s Cultural Revolution – How the radical left conquered everything – Christopher F. Rufo

The author does a good job of accurately presenting the violent behavior and rhetoric of several of the more extreme characters leading the political and racial unrest of the ‘60s. He also correctly reports that as violent tactics fell out of favor, the civil rights movement shifted its strategy toward social influence, initially toward academia.

But then he uses this factual history along with today’s social media reality to promote the idea of a vast successful conspiracy to subvert American public institutions and even the electorate. He claims that this “socialist/communist” dogma first took over the universities and has since spread to education at all levels, government at all levels, the media, and even corporate executives, directors, and shareholders.

Sadly, the author’s only focus seems to be staking out territory in extreme right wing politics. He never considers the possible validity of the goals, objectives, or demands of the civil rights movement. And of course he does not acknowledge that any societal inequality requires attention, or that maybe what he calls a conspiracy could simply be addressing those issues.

2.)  Woke, Inc. – Inside corporate America’s social justice scam – Vivek Ramaswamy

I know the author is brilliant and wealthy; and I suspect his run for the presidency is mostly just because he wants public attention. Regardless, if there is a central theme to his book, it seems to be that capitalism is failing in America. He claims that corporations’ only responsibility is to maximize profits for shareholders. He expresses offense at the very idea that capitalists should consider that they may have some broader social responsibility to the society that protects them and in which they operate.

The thing that came across to me in reading his material is his extreme authoritarian tone. He is effectively a Trump clone who wants to believe that the US President has, or should have, near dictatorial power to rule as he/she sees fit.

Another clear reality is that Mr. Ramaswamy is very conscious and proud of his ruling class roots in India. He appears to aspire to be recognized as a member of some special upper class in the United States as well. I think the value of his book is in recognizing how dangerous he could be to our democracy if he were elected or appointed to a public position of power.

3.)  Christian Supremacy – Reckoning with the Roots of Antisemitism and Racism – Magda Teter

This book is a striking indictment of the Christian Church for its promotion of hate, intolerance, and corruption beginning in the 4th century CE when it was made the official religion of the Roman empire. The author documents the history in stunning detail (using the actual writings of Church leaders themselves) the brutality of the Church through the ages from then until now.

The author documents the Church’s centuries of advancing the religious doctrine that Jews are intended to be subservient to Christians. She tracks how that Christian doctrinal concept of Jewish inferiority became inscribed in law. That in turn created social and legal structures that reinforce a sense of Christian dominance, superiority, and intolerance that is still common, maybe even prevalent, in white Christian dogma today.

Ms. Teter also documents how the Christian Church was pivotal in supporting the colonial interests of European governments by providing religious authority for kidnapping, enslavement, and exploitation of people of color sent to the Americas. That legacy of hate and intolerance still taints the worldview of Christians to this day.

This book, more than any other I have read, demonstrates how theological and legal frameworks created by the church centuries ago has created the antisemitism and anti-Black racism we are living with today. It demonstrates why Christian identity lies at the heart of the world’s violent white supremacy movements. And lest readers think this indictment is only of the Catholic Church before the Renaissance, think again. The author documents the same white Christian supremacy argument from both Catholic and Protestant church leaders today.

4.)  The Ballot and The Bible – Kaitlyn Schiess

The author explores and documents how the Bible has been used to justify political actions in America from its earliest days. She starts the discussion focused on the early 17th century with John Winthrop as a key character. She looks at how politicians from that early time and throughout American history have manipulated biblical scripture, often without associated historical context, to support whatever political position they were promoting at the time.

Specifically, the author follows how American patriots used scripture to support their revolt against Britain. While at the same time, she documents how the loyalists were using different scripture to justify remaining colonies of the British Empire.

In similar fashion the author explores the use of the Bible to support both pro-slavery and anti-slavery political positions during the Civil War. She continues the history lesson through the scriptural contortions during the Jim Crow era, the Civil Rights struggle, and ultimately through the politics of the late 20th and the first couple decades of the 21st centuries.

Ms Schiess does a good job of describing and explaining how the Bible is commonly used to promote various conflicting political positions. Though the book has a bit more of a religious narrative than I usually read, it gives significant insight into the bending, twisting, and manipulation of scripture for political ends that should be valuable to both religious and non-religious readers in this time of great political polarity.

5.)  Being White, Being Good – Barbara Applebaum

The central theme of this book is:  White Americans tend to be complicit in maintaining systemic racism in our society. The author dedicates significant effort to explaining that complicity is not the same as direct guilt. She further suggests that most white people don’t even know that they are being complicit or that their behavior is perpetuating systems of racism. She advances the proposition that whiteness itself defines acceptable social standards by which people of color are judged, conveys privilege to that dominant class, and assigns a kind of moral innocence to white Americans that is not granted to people who are not white.

Throughout the book the author discusses the mechanisms white people use either consciously or otherwise to reject the idea that they could possibly be complicit. She explores the claim of ignorance or denial of complicity as common defenses white people use. She also presents “complicity pedagogy” as a teaching method to help students recognize their own complicity and take responsibility. 

I share the author’s view that systemic racism is prevalent in American society. I chose to read this book in the hope that it would teach me how to discuss that subject in an objective non-confrontational way. The unfortunate reality for me is that I don’t think the author’s intended audience is laypeople like me. I got a lot out of it, but the book was not as useful to me as it probably is to professionals in the social sciences.