It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, June 05, 2020
BLACK SUN covers the mindset and motives that drive far-right extremists
Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity
More than half a century after the defeat of Nazism and fascism, the far right is again challenging the liberal order of Western democracies. Radical movements are feeding on anxiety about immigration, globalization and the refugee crisis, giving rise to new waves of nationalism and surges of white supremacism. A curious mixture of Aristocratic paganism, anti-Semitic demonology, Eastern philosophies and the occult is influencing populist antigovernment sentiment and helping to exploit the widespread fear that invisible elites are shaping world events.
Black Sun examines this neofascist ideology, showing how hate groups, militias and conspiracy cults gain influence. Based on interviews and extensive research into underground groups, the book documents new Nazi and fascist sects that have sprung up since the 1970s and examines the mentality and motivation of these far-right extremists. The result is a detailed, grounded portrait of the mythical and devotional aspects of Hitler cults among Aryan mystics, racist skinheads and Nazi satanists, and disciples of heavy metal music and occult literature.
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke offers a unique perspective on far right neo-Nazism viewing it as a new form of Western religious heresy. He paints a frightening picture of a religion with its own relics, rituals, prophecies and an international sectarian following that could, under the proper conditions, gain political power and attempt to realize its dangerous millenarian fantasies.
GOODRICK-CLARKE HAS WRITTEN TWO OTHER SERIOUS WORKS, (NOT SPECULATIVE)WHICH QUALIFIES AS SUCH BECAUSE HE HAS FOOTNOTES
ON OCCULT ESOTERIC NAZISM; THE OCCULT AND THE THIRD REICH, AND HITLER;S PRIESTESS WHOM I HAVE POSTED ABOUT.
Product description
From Publishers Weekly This comprehensive inquiry examines the disturbing historical and contemporary connections between certain religious cults and Nazi ideology. Goodrick-Clarke (Hitler's Priestess; The Occult Roots of Nazism) begins with a consideration of the origins of American neo-Nazism and ends with a thorough discussion of well-known, current far-right groups: the European skinheads, the Aryan Nations and the World Church of the Creator movement, which inspired the 1999 shooting spree in the Midwest. In between, the author focuses on the intersection between Nazi ideology and religious and cultural oddities, showing, for example, how some Nazi leaders, particularly Heinrich Himmler, were obsessed with esoterica and strange historical justifications for pro-Aryan racial theory. Over the past 75 years, Nazi ideology has been mixed with Hinduism, magic, alchemy and the occult as a rebellion against the status quo. In Nazi Satanism, "the swastika and Third Reich imagery join black candles, skulls and magical pentagrams in a tableau of ritualized transgression." And during the post-WWII era, many fascists saw UFO sightings as an indication that Nazis would come back to rule the world. Throughout, Goodrick-Clarke catalogues the ideologies, histories, personalities and appeals of the groups, most of which have always found young white men to be their most receptive audience. There's little evaluation of the potential that the small, splinter groups now active might have to commit future atrocities, but the author adds to our knowledge of the broad, frightening tentacles of Nazi ideology. Illus.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal Goodrick-Clarke's The Occult Roots of Nazism examined the influence of late 19th- and early 20th-century German and pagan mysticism on National Socialist thought. This sequel, based on the writings of past and contemporary adherents of these ideas, continues this study among modern American and European racist groups. The new angle is the glorification of Hitler and Nazism. Goodrick-Clarke shows how a strange mix of racism, paganism, Eastern religion, Christianity, Satanism, rock music, and science fiction is being used to support the revival of fascist ideas; adherents see Hitler himself as an avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu who survived World War II at a secret German flying-saucer base located in Antarctica. This disturbing work presents a troubling picture of the mindset of the modern Far Right. For all libraries. Stephen L. Hupp, West Virginia Univ. Parkersburg Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
“Anyone who remembers the devastation wrought by Nazi fanaticism can only be astonished and dismayed by this book. Who could have foreseen that half a century after the defeat of the Third Reich the Jews would once again be perceived as a demonic power intent on destroying the ‘Aryan race’, or that Hitler would be imagined as a divine being who is about to return to earth to complete the Holocaust? For the matter, who could have foreseen that the preposterous ‘pagan’ cult developed by Heinrich Himmler would ever be revived? Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke shows not only that these things have indeed happened but how and why they have happened. He also suggests what dangers they may portend. Black Sun is both an enthralling and a deeply disturbing work. It deserves the most serious attention and a wide readership.”
-Norman Cohn,author of The Pursuit of the Millennium and Warrant for Genocide
“[An] important work.” -Philadelphia Inquirer
“Presents a troubling picture of the mindset of the modern Far Right.” -Library Journal
“Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke has done pioneering work in the field of the occult roots of Nazism. In the present volume he performs the same invaluable service with regard to the ideological fantasies of post war neofascism.” -Walter Laqueur
“Excellent book provides a lucid and often chilling guide.” -Journal of European Studies About the Author
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke is the author of several books on ideology and the Western esoteric tradition, including Hitler’s Priestess and The Occult Roots of Nazism, which has remained in print since its publication in 1985 and has been translated into eight languages. He writes regularly for European and US Journals and has contributed to several films on the Third Reich and World War II.
614 BILLIONAIRES
EARNED 1/5 OF AMERICA'S GDP
DURING THE PAST THREE MONTHS OF CORONAVIRUS LOCKDOWN
A technology expert describes the ever-increasing role of artificial intelligence in weapons development, the ethical dilemmas these weapons pose, and the potential threat to humanity.Artificial intelligence is playing an ever-increasing role in military weapon systems. Going beyond the bomb-carrying drones used in the Afghan war, the Pentagon is now in a race with China and Russia to develop "lethal autonomous weapon systems" (LAWS). In this eye-opening overview, a physicist, technology expert, and former Honeywell executive examines the advantages and the potential threats to humanity resulting from the deployment of completely autonomous weapon systems. Stressing the likelihood that these weapons will be available in the coming decades, the author raises key questions about how the world will be impacted. Though using robotic systems might lessen military casualties in a conflict, one major concern is: Should we allow machines to make life-and-death decisions in battle? Other areas of concern include the following: Who would be accountable for the actions of completely autonomous weapons--the programmer, the machine itself, or the country that deploys LAWS? When warfare becomes just a matter of technology, will war become more probable, edging humanity closer to annihilation? What if AI technology reaches a "singularity level" so that our weapons are controlled by an intelligence exceeding human intelligence?Using vivid scenarios that immerse the reader in the ethical dilemmas and existential threats posed by lethal autonomous weapon systems, the book reveals that the dystopian visions of such movies as The Terminator and I, Robot may become a frightening reality in the near future. The author concludes with concrete recommendations, founded in historical precedent, to control this new arms race.
Review
""A highly readable and deeply researched exploration of one of the most chilling aspects of the development of artificial intelligence: the creation of intelligent, autonomous killing machines. In Louis A. Del Monte’s view, the multibillion dollar arms industry and longstanding rivalries among nations make the creation of autonomous weapons extremely likely. We must resist the allure of genius weapons, Del Monte argues, because they will almost inevitably lead to our extinction.” ―James Barrat, author of Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era
“For the second time in history, humanity is on the verge of creating weapons that might wipe us out entirely. Will we have the wisdom not to use them? No one can say, but this book will give you the facts you need to think about the issue intelligently.” ―J. Storrs Hall, author of Beyond AI: Creating the Conscience of the Machine
“This thought-provoking read provides insight into future world weapons scenarios we may face as technology rapidly advances. A call to arms for humanity, this book details the risks if we do not safeguard technology and weapon development.” ―Carl Hedberg, semiconductor sales and manufacturing management for thirty-seven years at Honeywell, Inc.
“In Genius Weapons, Del Monte provides a thorough and well-researched review of the history and development of ‘smart weapons’ and artificial intelligence. Then, using his background and imagination, he paints a very frightening picture of our possible future as these technologies converge. He challenges our understanding of warfare and outlines the surprising threat to mankind that may transpire in the not-too-distant future.” ―Anthony Hickl, PhD in materials science and former director of Project and Portfolio Management for New Products at Cargill
"We are already living the next war, which is increasingly being fought with the developing weapons that Del Monte writes about so engagingly.” ―Istvan Hargittai, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, author of Judging Edward Teller
“Del Monte explores a fascinating topic, which is of great importance to the world as the implementation of AI continues to grow. He points out the many applications of AI that can help humanity improve nearly every aspect of our lives―in medicine, business, finance, marketing, manufacturing, education, etc. He also raises important ethical concerns that arise with the use of AI in weapons systems and warfare. The book examines the difficulty of controlling these systems as they become more and more intelligent, someday becoming smarter than humans.” ―Edward Albers, retired semiconductor executive at Honeywell Analytics
About the Author
Louis A. Del Monte is an award-winning physicist, inventor, futurist, featured speaker, CEO of Del Monte and Associates, Inc., and high profile media personality. For over thirty years, he was a leader in the development of microelectronics and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) for IBM and Honeywell. His patents and technology developments, currently used by Honeywell, IBM, and Samsung, are fundamental to the fabrication of integrated circuits and sensors. As a Honeywell Executive Director from 1982 to 2001, he led hundreds of physicists, engineers, and technology professionals engaged in integrated circuit and sensor technology development for both Department of Defense (DOD) and commercial applications. He is literally a man whose career has changed the way we work, play, and make war. Del Monte is the recipient of the H.W. Sweatt Award for scientific engineering achievement and the Lund Award for management excellence. He is the author of Nanoweapons, The Artificial Intelligence Revolution, How to Time Travel, and Unravelling the Universe's Mysteries. He has been quoted or has published articles in the Huffington Post, the Atlantic, Business Insider, American Security Today, Inc., and on CNBC.
This book describes the ever-increasing role of artificial intelligence (AI) in warfare. Specifically, we will examine autonomous weapons, which will dominate over half of the twenty-first-century battlefield. Next, we will examine genius weapons, which will dominate the latter portion of the twenty-first-century battlefield. In both cases, we will discuss the ethical dilemmas these weapons pose and their potential threat to humanity.
Mention autonomous weapons and many will conjure images of Terminator robots and US Air Force drones. Although Terminator robots are still a fantasy, drones with autopilot capabilities are realities. However, for the present at least, it still requires a human to decide when a drone makes a kill. In other words, the drone is not autonomous. To be perfectly clear, the US Department of Defense defines an autonomous weapon system as “a weapon system(s) that, once activated, can select and engage targets without further intervention by a human operator.” These weapons are often termed, in military jargon, “fire and forget.”
In addition to the United States, nations like China and Russia are investing heavily in autonomous weapons. For example, Russia is fielding autonomous weapons to guard its ICBM bases. In 2014, according to Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, Russia intends to field “robotic systems that are fully integrated in the command and control system, capable not only to gather intelligence and to receive from the other com-ponents of the combat system, but also on their own strike.”
In 2015, Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work reported this grim reality during a national defense forum hosted by the Center for a New American Security. According to Work, “We know that China is already investing heavily in robotics and autonomy and the Russian Chief of General Staff [Valery Vasilevich] Gerasimov recently said that the Russian military is preparing to fight on a roboticized battlefield.” In fact, Work quoted Gerasimov as saying, “In the near future, it is possible that a complete roboticized unit will be created capable of independently conducting military operations.”
You may ask: What is the driving force behind autonomous weapons? There are two forces driving these weapons:
1. Technology: AI technology, which provides the intelligence of autonomous weapon systems (AWS), is advancing exponentially. Experts in AI predict autonomous weapons, which would select and engage targets without human intervention, will debut within years, not decades. Indeed, a limited number of autonomous weapons already exist. For now, they are the exception. In the future, they will dominate conflict.
2. Humanity: In 2016, the World Economic Forum (WEF) attendees were asked, “If your country was suddenly at war, would you rather be defended by the sons and daughters of your community, or an autonomous AI weapons system?” The majority, 55 percent, responded that they would prefer artificially intelligent (AI) soldiers. This result suggests a worldwide desire to have robots, sometimes referred to as “killer robots,” fight wars, rather than risking human lives.
The use of AI technology in warfare is not new. The first large-scale use of “smart bombs” by the United States during Operation Desert Storm in 1991 made it apparent that AI had the potential to change the nature of war. The word “smart” in this context means “artificially intelligent.” The world watched in awe as the United States demonstrated the surgical precision of smart bombs, which neutralized military targets and minimized collateral damage. In general, using autonomous weapon systems in conflict offers highly attractive advantages:
• Economic: Reducing costs and personnel.
• Operational: Increasing the speed of decision-making, reducing dependence on communications, reducing human errors.
• Security: Replacing or assisting humans in harm’s way.
• Humanitarian: Programming killer robots to respect the international humanitarian laws of war better than humans.
Even with these advantages, there are significant downsides. For example, when warfare becomes just a matter of technology, will it make engaging in war more attractive? No commanding officer has to write a letter to the mothers and fathers, wives and husbands, of a drone lost in battle. Politically, it is more palatable to report equipment losses than human causalities. In addition, a country with superior killer robots has both a military advantage and a psychological advantage. To understand this, let us examine the second question posed to attendees of the 2016 World Economic Forum: “If your country was suddenly at war, would you rather be invaded by the sons and daughters of your enemy, or an autonomous AI weapon system?” A significant majority, 66 percent, responded with a preference for human soldiers.
In May 2014, a Meeting of Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems was held at the United Nations in Geneva to discuss the ethical dilemmas such weapon systems pose, such as:
• Can sophisticated computers replicate the human intuitive moral decision-making capacity?
• Is human intuitive moral perceptiveness ethically desirable? If the answer is yes, then the legitimate exercise of deadly force should always require human control.
• Who is responsible for the actions of a lethal autonomous weapon system? If the machine is following a programmed algorithm, is the programmer responsible? If the machine is able to learn and adapt, is the machine responsible? Is the operator or country that deploys LAWS (i.e., lethal autonomous weapon systems) responsible?
In general, there is a worldwide growing concern with regard to taking humans “out of the loop” in the use of legitimate lethal force.
Concurrently, though, AI technology continues its relentless exponential advancement. AI researchers predict there is a 50 percent probability that AI will equal human intelligence in the 2040 to 2050 timeframe. Those same experts predict that AI will greatly exceed the cognitive per-formance of humans in virtually all domains of interest as early as 2070, which is termed the “singularity.” Here are three important terms we will use in this book:
1. We can term a computer at the point of and after the singularity as “superintelligence,” as is common in the field of AI.
2. When referring to the class of computers with this level of AI, we will use the term “superintelligences.”
3. In addition, we can term weapons controlled by superintelligence as “genius weapons.”
Following the singularity, humanity will face superintelligences, computers that greatly exceed the cognitive performance of humans in virtu-ally all domains of interest. This raises a question: How will superintelli-gences view humanity? Obviously, our history suggests we engage in devastating wars and release malicious computer viruses, both of which could adversely affect these machines. Will superintelligences view humanity as a threat to their existence? If the answer is yes, this raises another ques-tion: Should we give such machines military capabilities (i.e., create genius weapons) that they could potentially use against us?
A cursory view of AI suggests it is yielding numerous benefits. In fact, most of humanity perceives only the positive aspects of AI technology, like automotive navigation systems, Xbox games, and heart pacemakers. Mesmerized by AI technology, they fail to see the dark side. Nonetheless, there is a dark side. For example, the US military is deploying AI into almost every aspect of warfare, from Air Force drones to Navy torpedoes.
Humanity acquired the ability to destroy itself with the invention of the atom bomb. During the Cold War, the world lived in perpetual fear that the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics would engulf the world in a nuclear conflict. Although we came dangerously close to both intentional and unintentional nuclear holocaust on numerous occasions, the doctrine of “mutually assured destruction” (MAD) and human judgment kept the nuclear genie in the bottle. If we arm superintelligences with genius weapons, will they be able to replicate human judgment?
In 2008, experts surveyed at the Global Catastrophic Risk Conference at the University of Oxford suggested a 19 percent chance of human extinction by the end of this century, citing the top four most probable causes:
1. Molecular nanotechnology weapons: 5 percent probability
2. Superintelligent AI: 5 percent probability
3. Wars: 4 percent probability
4. Engineered pandemic: 2 percent probability
Currently, the United States, Russia, and China are relentlessly developing and deploying AI in lethal weapon systems. If we consider the Oxford assessment, this suggests that humanity is combining three of the four elements necessary to edge us closer to extinction.
This book will explore the science of AI, its applications in warfare, and the ethical dilemmas those applications pose. In addition, it will address the most important question facing humanity: Will it be possible to continually increase the AI capabilities of weapons without risking human extinction, especially as we move from smart weapons to genius weapons?
FRANKEN SCIENCE
The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare
For generations of Americans, our country has been the world's dominant military power. How the US military fights, and the systems and weapons that it fights with, have been uncontested. That old reality, however, is rapidly deteriorating. America's traditional sources of power are eroding amid the emergence of new technologies and the growing military threat posed by rivals such as China. America is at grave risk of losing a future war. As Christian Brose reveals in this urgent wake-up call, the future will be defined by artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, and other emerging technologies that are revolutionizing global industries and are now poised to overturn the model of American defense. This fascinating, if disturbing, book confronts the existential risks on the horizon, charting a way for America's military to adapt and succeed with new thinking as well as new technology. America must build a battle network of systems that enables people to rapidly understand threats, make decisions, and take military actions, the process known as "the kill chain." Examining threats from China, Russia, and elsewhere, The Kill Chain offers hope and, ultimately, insights on how America can apply advanced technologies to prevent war, deter aggression, and maintain peace.
Review
"The Kill Chain is a tour-de-force. Few people are as knowledgeable and experienced as Christian Brose in thinking about the intersection of emerging technology and national defense. He pulls it all together in this compelling, unsettling, and outstanding book."―Eric Schmidt, former Chairman of Alphabet and CEO and Chairman of Google
"Provocative, jolting, superb, and on target! The Kill Chain is all of those things and more. If you read only one book to better understand the challenges facing the US military and the promise of emerging technologies, this should be it."―Admiral James Stavridis, former Supreme Allied Commander at NATO and author of Sailing True North: Ten Admirals and the Voyage of Character
"Christian Brose has done the country a great service by writing this important and timely book. The Kill Chain is a powerful and thoughtful challenge to much of the conventional wisdom about national defense. It also offers a compelling vision for how the US military can get beyond business as usual to compete and win in this new era of great power competition. Brose's book should be read by every American."―Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), author of Sacred Duty: A Soldier's Tour at Arlington National Cemetery
"The Kill Chain is an exceptional--and an exceptionally stimulating--guide to thinking about the military and technological revolutions that will produce a fundamental change to the character of war."―General David Petraeus (US Army, Ret.), former Commander of the Surge in Iraq, US Central Command, and Coalition Forces in Afghanistan, as well as former Director of the CIA
"Christian Brose understands like few others the serious challenges the U.S. military faces, especially in relation to China. He delivers a powerful wake-up call to the American people and our leadership--warning aptly that America's military superiority is at grave risk unless we reimagine defense. Thankfully, Brose issues a thoughtful and compelling plan for America to adapt effectively in this gripping, must-read book."―Susan E. Rice, former US National Security Advisor and Ambassador to the United Nations
About the Author
Christian Brose is currently Chief Strategy Officer of Anduril Industries, a technology start-up that develops national defense capabilities, and Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He served as Staff Director of the Senate Armed Services Committee (2015-2018), where he was the youngest person to hold the position in the committee's history. Before that, he served as Senator John McCain's senior policy advisor (2009-2015). Brose was previously a speechwriter to two secretaries of state, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, and a member of the State Department Policy Planning Staff.
Hitler's Monsters: A Supernatural History of the Third Reich
On this All Hallows' Eve, a special Halloween look at last week's program - "Hitler's Monsters". The Nazi fascination with the occult is legendary, and in reality the supernatural was an essential part of the Nazi project. The regime enlisted astrology and the paranormal, paganism, Indo-Aryan mythology, witchcraft, miracle weapons, and the lost kingdom of Atlantis in reimagining German politics and society and recasting German science and religion. Join Eric Kurlander, professor of history at Stetson University and author of Hitler's Monsters: A Supernatural History of the Third Reich, for an eye-opening look at the occult ideas, esoteric sciences, and pagan religions touted by Nazi Germany in the service of power.
The definitive history of the supernatural in Nazi Germany, exploring the occult ideas, esoteric sciences, and pagan religions touted by the Third Reich in the service of power
The Nazi fascination with the occult is legendary, yet today it is often dismissed as Himmler’s personal obsession or wildly overstated for its novelty. Preposterous though it was, however, supernatural thinking was inextricable from the Nazi project. The regime enlisted astrology and the paranormal, paganism, Indo-Aryan mythology, witchcraft, miracle weapons, and the lost kingdom of Atlantis in reimagining German politics and society and recasting German science and religion. In this eye-opening history, Eric Kurlander reveals how the Third Reich’s relationship to the supernatural was far from straightforward. Even as popular occultism and superstition were intermittently rooted out, suppressed, and outlawed, the Nazis drew upon a wide variety of occult practices and esoteric sciences to gain power, shape propaganda and policy, and pursue their dreams of racial utopia and empire.
Product description
Review
“Deeply researched, convincingly authenticated, this extraordinary study of the magical and supernatural at the highest levels of Nazi Germany will astonish.”—Robert Carver, Spectator
“A trustworthy [book] on an extraordinary subject.”—David Aaronovitch, The Times
“This is a dense and scholarly book about one of the pulpiest subjects of the past 70 years – the relationship between the Nazi party and the occult, which has been much debated across popular culture both in fiction (Captain America, Hellboy, Wolfenstein, the Indiana Jones series, Iron Sky, The Keep and countless others) and in innumerable schlocky works of pseudoscience with runes and swastikas on the covers. As it turns out, though, even this sober, academic treatment of the topic reveals stranger-than-fiction truths on every page.”—Tim Martin, Daily Telegraph
“[Kurlander] shows how swiftly irrational ideas can take hold, even in an age before social media.”—Michael Dirda, The Washington Post
“This original and compellingly argued book shows a significant link between Nazism and the supernatural.” —Lisa Pine, English Historical Quarterly
“A fascinating look at a little-understood aspect of fascism.”—Kirkus Reviews
“A frightening glimpse at the pseudo-science national socialists accepted to justify their abominations abroad.”—National Post
“Kurlander provides a careful, clear-headed, and exhaustive examination of a subject so lurid that it has probably scared away some of the serious research it merits.”—National Review
“A deeply researched and lucid study of the role of supernatural beliefs in the rise of the Nazis . . . Indispensable for anyone interested in Nazism and modern pseudoscience and pseudohistory.”—Choice
"Hitler’s Monsters by Eric Kurlander advances an arresting argument. . . . Eric Kurlander deserves considerable credit for taking us along on that pursuit in such entertaining and stimulating fashion."—Derek Hastings, Journal of Modern History
"Hitler’s Monsters is a book I’ve long been wishing to read. Now that it’s been written, I couldn’t be more delighted. Eric Kurlander delivers in just about every way possible. His writing is crisp and compelling; his haunting narrative richly documented, utterly convincing, and certain to change popular understanding of National Socialist history in Germany."—Sidney D. Kirkpatrick, author of Hitler’s Holy Relics
"Eric Kurlander’s provocative new study offers compelling reasons to take a critical look at the neglected history of occultism in Nazi Germany. It should spark renewed attention to the topic and more informed debates about its significance."—Peter Staudenmaier, author of Between Occultism and Nazism
"In this thought-provoking and original book, Kurlander explores the monstrousness of Hitler’s Germany by taking seriously the demons, vampires, witches, and werewolves that populated the Nazi world and made possible the building of a Third Reich right in the middle of the twentieth century."—Peter Fritzsche, author of An Iron Wind: Europe Under Hitler
"Until now, no one has offered a sustained treatment of the links between Nazism and occultism. Eric Kurlander has unearthed myriad examples of these links, and in fields as diverse as agriculture, archaeology and armaments manufacture. Their cumulative effect in Hitler’s Monsters is positively jaw-dropping."—Monica Black, author of Death in Berlin
"In this stunning new book, historian Eric Kurlander shows how the Third Reich was monstrous in more ways than commonly supposed. The regime's modern planning and methods of conquest and biopolitics were shot through with the search for esoteric pagan, even supernatural knowledge. We cannot think of “racial science” in the same way again."—A. Dirk Moses, author of German Intellectuals and the Nazi Past
About the Author
Eric Kurlander is professor of history at Stetson University. He lives in DeLand, FL.
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, July 2017. 448 pages.
$35.00. Hardcover. ISBN 9780300189452.
Review
Eric Kurlander’s Hitler’s Monsters: A Supernatural History of the Third Reich investigates the role of occultism, supernatural thinking, and “border science”—practices that claimed scientific legitimacy, even while violating standards of empirical verification—in Nazi Germany. From the Nazi Party’s origins in the occultist Thule Society in 1918-19 to the “werewolf” mythologies that drove partisan actions in the waning days of the Second World War, Kurlander integrates the burgeoning literature on Nazi Germany and the occult while incorporating new archival evidence. The result is an exhaustively documented study whose core thesis will prove difficult to refute: Nazi ideology and propaganda, the regime’s genocidal war aims, and the leadership’s insistence on pursuing a bloody Endkampf in the face of inevitable defeat depended on supernatural beliefs shared widely by both the National Socialist leadership and the German population.
Hitler’s Monsters is at its most impressive in demonstrating overarching patterns amidst the seemingly chaotic nature of Nazi ideology and policymaking. Kurlander shows that a fascination with the supernatural was present at the outset of the National Socialist movement, and shaped Nazi beliefs about race, space, and national destiny through the end of the war. The occultist Thule Society that sponsored the early German Workers’ Party, the predecessor to Hitler's National Socialist Party, promoted “rabid anti-Semitism and anti-Communism, fanatical hatred of democracy, and dedication to overthrowing the [Weimar] Republic” (46). The Nazi Party’s early supporters were steeped in mythologies of a proto-Germanic civilization that emerged out of an Indo-Aryan race, and many believed Hitler to be gifted with supernatural capabilities. After coming to power, the Nazis organized an expedition to Tibet in search of Indo-Aryan ruins, invested in “biodynamic” agriculture that claimed to activate mystical forces beneath the soil, sponsored research on the pseudoscientific “World Ice Theory,” and performed deadly experiments on concentration camp inmates seeking to revive the deceased or demonstrate the racial inferiority of Jews. Kurlander convincingly argues that no decisive turn against occultism took place. Instead, the selective persecution of movements perceived as challenges to the regime’s authority, especially after 1937, formed the bases for deepening cooperation with occult practitioners during the war (106-29).
While offering a fresh synthesis, Kurlander’s study also returns to older interpretive models. Whereas recent scholarship has argued that border science enabled Europeans to adapt to a modern, post-Christian society (xiii), Kurlander follows the neo-Marxist theorists Theodor Adorno and Ernst Bloch, who viewed occultism as “a tool for the fascist manipulation of the population” (6) that subverted critical reflection (see Theodor Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life, trans. E. F. N. Jephcott, Verso, 2005, 238-44). Departing from historians who have focused on the European and global contexts of colonialism, racial science, and economic crisis within which Nazi Germany took shape, Kurlander emphasizes a peculiarly Austro-German fascination with the supernatural. Readers schooled in the critique of the Sonderweg (special path) paradigm of German history might take issue with Kurlander’s suggestions that the “liberal and cosmopolitan aspects of theosophic thought” were “stronger” in Britain than in Germany (16), or that Germany’s long period of political fragmentation fueled particular skepticism toward modern science (23-24). Nevertheless, Kurlander presents compelling evidence for the depth of interest in the supernatural within both the Nazi Party and German society more broadly. In the early 20th century, “thousands of spiritualists, mediums, and astrologers” worked in Berlin and Munich (14), while during the Second World War, the Nazi leadership eschewed the “Jewish” science of atomic physics to invest in supernatural “death rays” and anti-gravity machines (270-76).
Hitler’s Monsters leaves open the question of how to integrate the supernatural into the mainstream of scholarship on Nazi Germany, where it continues to play a secondary role. While demonstrating the ubiquity of supernatural thinking at the highest levels of the regime, Kurlander recognizes that occultism constitutes only one of multiple factors necessary to explain Nazi atrocities. “The Third Reich’s crimes took on monumental dimensions because the Nazis drew both on border scientific theories peculiar to the Austro-German supernatural imaginary as well asa broader European mix of eugenics, racism, and colonialism” (232). But how precisely did the “supernatural imaginary” affect the decision process leading to the Final Solution, or the operation of particular killing sites? A task for future scholarship will be to complement Kurlander's focus on the elite stratum of Nazi leaders—Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels, Rosenberg, and Bormann figure prominently in his narrative—with investigations of the role of the supernatural in particular religious communities, localities, or military and SS divisions. Such scholarship will surely begin from Kurlander's learned and wide-ranging study.
About the Reviewer(s):
Brandon Bloch is College Fellow in Modern European History at Harvard University.
Date of Review:
July 18, 2018
About the Author(s)/Editor(s)/Translator(s):
Eric Kurlander is Professor of History at Stetson University. His previous books include The Price of Exclusion: Ethnicity, National Identity, and the Decline of German Liberalism, 1898–1933 and Living With Hitler: Liberal Democrats in the Third Reich (Yale University Press, 2009).
Categories: politics 20th century mysticism ritual violence Europe
Keywords: occult, Nazi, paganism, witchcraft, astrology, supernatural The Nazi's Were Obsessed With Magic What can their fascination with the supernatural teach us about life in our own post-truth times? By REBECCA ONION AUG 24, 2017 SALON https://tinyurl.com/yd2npxlc A picture dated 1939 shows Adolf Hitler giving a speech during a meeting with high-rank Nazi officials. FRANCE PRESSE VOIR/AFP/Getty Images
The History Channel and the virtual pages of Amazon are full of the stories of Nazis who claimed to become werewolves, channel pagan gods, or communicate with aliens. As historian Peter Staudenmaier recently wrote in Aeon, titillated conversations about the Nazis as occult masters just make it harder to talk about the realities of fascism. (If supernatural forces made the Holocaust happen, after all, we don’t have to wonder how humans could have done those things.)
But that doesn’t mean the Nazi relationship with this kind of fringey thinking is meaningless. Historian Eric Kurlander has recently written a book that takes Nazi occultism seriously: Hitler’s Monsters: A Supernatural History of the Third Reich. Grouping astrology, some practices in archaeology, history, and folklore, and out-there scientific theories together under the heading “the supernatural imaginary,” Kurlander writes about how the popularity of border thinking guided the Nazis in creating their own political reality in Germany.
We spoke recently about World Ice Theory, the anti-Semitism inherent in Nazi critiques of mainstream science, and lessons from Nazi unreality for our own post-truth times. This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Who participated in supernatural thinking in Germany in the ’20s, ’30s, and ’40s? Everyone? And do you think Nazis actually believed this stuff, or did they find it politically convenient?
Educated urban liberal elites and Jewish intellectuals were the least likely to embrace any of this as authentic, or see it as anything other than a pathology of modernity that was particularly strong in Austria and Germany and needed to be dealt with. They could see people they otherwise respected finding some of it interesting, and worried about that response, but they were almost universally opposed to it.
Then you have the German and Austrian middle and lower-middle classes. Traditional religious practice was waning over the course of the 19th century. World War I was really galvanizing in that regard because it called everything into question. Many people who were—well, I don’t want to use the term that some of the intellectuals at the time used, like “half-educated,” “semi-educated”; Theodor Adorno [said] “occultism is the metaphysic of dunces.” Let’s say, clearly these were people who were educated enough to want an alternative to traditional religion, to want to be able to argue scientifically or with authority about religion, science, and politics, and they’re finding these alternative doctrines and institutes and classes on parapsychology and tarot reading as a kind of supplement to the [disenchantment of] the world that occurred through industrialization. And that was true of millions of Germans and Austrians. (It was also true in Britain and France!)
Why did so many Nazis, in particular, believe it or find it interesting or see it as potentially helpful in manipulating the population? Because they grew up during a flowering of supernatural thinking across Germany and Austria. So even the Nazis who were skeptical recognized it as a profound theme. You have both Hitler and Goebbels in the 1920s acknowledging that ‘folkish [völkisch]’ thinkers are the ones most likely to join the Nazi Party. Many of these people want to wander around “clothed in bearskins,” as Hitler put it in Mein Kampf, talking about mystical runes. Now Hitler and Goebbels said, “That’s not what our movement is about.” So some people say, “You see, Hitler wasn’t into that!” But my question is why didn’t Churchill or Roosevelt or France’s Prime Minister Leon Blum have to write things like that to their constituents repeatedly? It’s because [supernatural thinking] wasn’t so intrinsic to [their] movements.
So to come back to France for a minute: In France, you don’t see the equivalent politicization and racialization of it. You have theosophy in Britain and America. But it’s a relatively harmless movement, where people get together in a drawing room and try to connect with spirits and write novels about Atlantis. But the concept of root races, which [H.P.] Blavatsky, the Russian progenitor of theosophy, talked about, never gets brought up as an actual basis for belief in “superior breeding” or race war among the liberal or conservative parties that run the government in Britain and America. It clearly is not influencing Roosevelt or Churchill’s view of social policy or foreign policy.
But in Germany so many of the people who joined the Nazi Party or supported it are using language and ideas directly borrowed from these occult and border scientific doctrines. “Tschandals,” the lesser races, a Thule civilization.
You make a distinction between pseudoscience, which tries (and fails) to operate within mainstream science, and what you call “border science,” which works around the edges, from a faith-based epistemology. What was the relationship between the people who were still trying to work within an international mainstream of scientific activity in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, and the people who were doing these border-scientific experiments that were increasingly supported by the regime? (World Ice Theory, for example—the idea that everything in our universe was created when the collision of two stars flung icy celestial moons and planets everywhere—happened to align with ideas from Nordic mythology, so it got a lot of support from the Nazis despite its origins in a dream.)
[Border science] was easily dismissed as amateurish by mainstream scientists in the 1910s and 1920s. There were no university posts or research institutes officially sponsored by the Imperial German, Austrian, or Weimar government to promote world ice theory. But it was wildly popular among völkisch and esoterically inclined thinkers, like engineers, who didn’t quite understand modern physics but understood enough technical jargon to kind of glom onto the ideas and argue that they were valid as an alternative to “Jewish physics.”
In the 1930s Hitler and [Heinrich] Himmler gave an honorary doctoral title to the living co-progenitor of World Ice Theory, or “Glacial Cosmogony” as they called it, Philip Fauth. They put him and Hans Robert Scultetus, who was trained as a meteorologist, in charge of a World Ice Division in ’35 or ’36 within the Ahnenerbe, Himmler’s giant Institute for Ancestral Research. The sole purpose of the division was to coordinate and propagate World Ice Theory as official Nazi doctrine.
A year or so in they started to get nasty letters from the Prussian Academy of Sciences, or professional physicists and geologists, asking “Hey, what are you doing here? It’s bad enough that kids can’t do math anymore and we’re trying to rebuild our military and improve our technology. Now you’ve got these official publications claiming that World Ice Theory is just as good or better than modern geology and physics. This is really problematic.”
The really mainstream, well-known natural scientists—as far as I can tell, they were just ignored. So Himmler didn’t put them in jail or anything, he just wouldn’t give them the time of day when they wrote the letters. But if you were a person within the SS ambit, like this guy named Georg Hinzpeter, you were in trouble. All Hinzpeter said was, “You know, if we use what we’ve got in the last 30 years in terms of physics and geology, some calculations and claims that [co-progenitor of the theory Hans] Hörbiger made 40 years ago—not his fault, that was the 1890s—don’t quite hold up, and maybe we should rethink these premises.” And that was when Himmler and Scultetus and this other guy, Edmund Kiss, who wrote fantasy novels about Atlantis—not even a scientist!—they all agreed: “You know what? We’ve got a protocol [The Pyrmont Protocol] now. Anyone practicing World Ice Theory now has to subscribe to its basic tenets”—almost like a bible. “And if you don’t, you will not be allowed to publish, at least not with the imprimatur of anything in the government, and you will not get any funding.” In 1939, World Ice Theory became a very rigid kind of orthodoxy.
As in many other areas, the Third Reich was not a totalitarian regime in all ways. They weren’t going to start locking up otherwise brilliant “Aryan” scientists who paid their taxes and joined the military because they found this theory laughable. But they weren’t going to change what they thought or redistribute funding in a more rational way, either.
What other theories, beside World Ice Theory, did the regime adhere to in that way?
Well, the entire apparatus of race theory was founded at least as much on ideas drawn from Indo-Aryan religion, Nordic mythology and occult or border-scientific doctrines as it was on modern biology or eugenics. Eugenics as practiced in most of the West was limited by the fact that those people wanted to be accepted by mainstream biology. So eugenics was a pseudoscience, not a border science. It did come out of mainstream genetics and biology, it just made claims that were out of all proportion with scientific capacity or reality at the time. And when that proved as destructive as it was, both scientifically and ideologically [after World War II], it got reined back in.
In the Nazi case, it’s the opposite. While they make certain nods to the eugenics movement and say “Oh, this brilliant Swedish or British eugenicist was very inspiring,” when you look at how they argue about race, with the Jews being monstrous and the Slavs “sub-human,” while Indian, Japanese, and perhaps even Persian and Arab civilizations are deemed at least partially Indo-Aryan, it’s all this stuff that’s wrapped up with ariosophy, theosophy, anthroposophy—these major occult doctrines that were prominent in Austria and Germany. It had so little to do with actual empirical science, or even pseudoscience practiced elsewhere during the first half of the 20th century, that it opened the way for all these fantastical policies.
To what degree was anti-mainstream-science feeling within the Nazi Party also anti-Semitic?
I wouldn’t say they were “anti-science.” The Nazis simply thought that there are new sciences, new ways of doing things that traditional scientists hadn’t accepted, in part because they’d been corrupted by Jewish leftist materialists who don’t understand the mystical parts of life. Because the Jews, they insist, are these soulless, self-interested, evil people who just can’t get the organicist connection between soul and body—and all these other ideas that völkisch and esoteric thinkers, and many Nazis, embraced.
You make the argument that, near the end of the war, miraculous thinking was a strategic and military detriment to the Nazi war effort. What happened to this kind of thinking through the lead-up to the defeat and after the defeat?
My impression is that the supernatural imaginary, and the Nazi dismissal of mainstream science in favor of border science, impacted their ability, financially and logistically, to maximize military resources. I give examples, like the rocket program and death rays and other things that the SS was trying to develop, and Hitler’s own aversion to nuclear technology. I haven’t quantified it, and the effect may have only been marginal, and there’s a lot of research left to be done here. Maybe [supernatural thinking] only undermined the Nazi ability to maximize whatever it was they needed at any given time—more bombers, more fighters—by 10 or 20 percent, and they would have lost anyway. But clearly there was an impact there.
We happen to have a period in Austria and Germany, where for various reasons, the intrinsic popularity of certain occult ideas and border scientific doctrines, of alternative religions, Nordic mythology, and German folklore, punctuated by crises, like World War I and the Great Depression, made the supernatural imaginary much more widespread, public, political, and dangerous as a reservoir of policy, than it would have been otherwise or was in other countries at that time.
After the war, now that Germany was defeated [these kinds of supernatural thinking] became receded from the realm of policy, becoming a mostly privatized form of entertainment. No longer were there research institutes, supported by Himmler or Hitler, sponsoring parapsychology, dowsing, or World Ice Theory. With the collapse of Goebbels’ Propaganda Ministry no major German political leaders were promoting astrology as a means of propaganda or threatening collaborators with retribution from Nazi “werewolves.” And that for me is important.
So people are still interested in the supernatural today! They’re playing video games and reading Harry Potter, but most recognize the difference between supernatural thinking and empirical science; between fantasy and policy. I think Germans since 1945 have become more allergic to these kinds of faith-based, organicist, racist, völkisch ways of thinking, precisely because of that experience from the 1890s and to the 1940s. It doesn’t go away, but it becomes privatized and held at arms’ length.
One of the things that makes liberals, lefties, centrists feel so frustrated in encountering an administration that is anti-reality, is the feeling that nothing you will say can make a difference. Is there anything that opponents of Nazis in Germany did that Americans can take a note or a lesson from, in terms of intervening against the supernatural imaginary taking hold of the national mind?
Let’s say one-quarter or one-third of [people in] all modern industrialized societies are sympathetic to fascism. They may claim they believe in democracy and elections and some kind of individual rights, but when it comes down to it, they’ll sacrifice those to have this kind of national organic folk community that fits their vision of their country. And they’ll give up all sorts of rights and kick out foreigners.
You want to be arguing against people who have that point of view, but you also want to make sure you aren’t alienating the more rational actors, who recognize that this is dangerous and would only side with the fascist group if they’re alienated from whatever the putative left might be.
It means not exaggerating or demonizing certain things that are really legitimate points of view, even if you disagree with them, and then being careful to explain your terms when you want to identify fascist, or racist, or supernaturalist thinking.
It’s not an easy process, because once [supernatural thinking] has been unleashed, and we’ve been resorting to faith-based responses to complex problems it for years, it’s very hard to turn around and suddenly say, “Global warming is happening. It’s just a question of how bad it is, and what we can do about it.” Or “the world is not 5,000 years old, the world is billions of years old. We need to accept science and evolution.” It’s hard for conservatives now to say that, much less liberals, and still get elected.
When it comes to some of these fundamental premises on which we base our political and social reality, all educated people, all citizens, regardless of politics, [should be] agreeing and pushing back. And I don’t think we’re there yet.
THE ORIGIN OF THE DEEP STATE The Brothers explores hidden forces that shape the national psyche, from religious piety to Western movies—many of which are about a noble gunman who cleans up a lawless town by killing bad guys. This is how the Dulles brothers saw themselves, and how many Americans still see their country's role in the world.
A joint biography of John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles, who led the United States into an unseen war that decisively shaped today's world
During the 1950s, when the Cold War was at its peak, two immensely powerful brothers led the United States into a series of foreign adventures whose effects are still shaking the world.
John Foster Dulles was secretary of state while his brother, Allen Dulles, was director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In this book, Stephen Kinzer places their extraordinary lives against the background of American culture and history. He uses the framework of biography to ask: Why does the United States behave as it does in the world?
Propelled by a quintessentially American set of fears and delusions, the Dulles brothers launched violent campaigns against foreign leaders they saw as threats to the United States. These campaigns helped push countries from Guatemala to the Congo into long spirals of violence, led the United States into the Vietnam War, and laid the foundation for decades of hostility between the United States and countries from Cuba to Iran.
The story of the Dulles brothers is the story of America. It illuminates and helps explain the modern history of the United States and the world.
An author tending toward criticism of American foreign affairs (Overthrow, 2006), Kinzer casts a jaundiced eye on siblings who conducted them in the 1950s. Framing his assessment as a dual biography of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and CIA director Allen Dulles, Kinzer roots their anti-Communist policies in their belief in American exceptionalism and its Wilsonian application to promote democracy in the world. Less abstractly, the Dulles brothers were politically connected Wall Street lawyers, servants of corporate power, according to Kinzer. Their personalities, however, were starkly different. John Foster was serious-minded and maritally faithful. Gregarious Allen was a serial cheater. With such character portraits as backdrop, Kinzer arraigns the Dulles brothers’ operations against several countries. Detailing American actions in Iran, Guatemala, Indonesia, and Cuba, Kinzer crafts a negative perspective on the legacy of the Dulles brothers, whom he absolves slightly from blame because their compatriots widely approved of their providential sense of America’s role in world affairs. A historical critique sure to spark debate. --Gilbert Taylor About the Author
Stephen Kinzer is the author of Reset, Overthrow, All the Shah's Men, and numerous other books. An award-winning foreign correspondent, he served as the New York Times's bureau chief in Turkey, Germany, and Nicaragua and as the Boston Globe's Latin America correspondent. He is a visiting fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University, contributes to The New York Review of Books, and writes a column on world affairs for The Guardian. He lives in Boston.
Review
“[A] fluently written, ingeniously researched, thrillerish work of popular history… Mr. Kinzer has brightened his dark tale with an abundance of racy stories. Gossip nips at the heels of history on nearly every page.” ―The Wall Street Journal
“Anyone wanting to know why the United States is hated across much of the world need look no farther than this book... A riveting chronicle.” ―The New York Times Book Review
“[The Brothers] is a bracing, disturbing and serious study of the exercise of American global power… Kinzer, a former foreign correspondent for the New York Times, displays a commanding grasp of the vast documentary record, taking the reader deep inside the first decades of the Cold War. He brings a veteran journalist's sense of character, moment and detail. And he writes with a cool and frequently elegant style.” ―The Washington Post
“[A] fast-paced and often gripping dual biography.” ―The Boston Globe
“Stephen Kinzer's sparkling new biography...suggests that the story of the Dulles brothers is the story of America.” ―Washington Monthly
“Two exceptionally important stories take up the bulk of Kinzer's book, and both are told with considerable insight and disciplined prose.” ―Bookforum
“The errors of the Dulles brothers are vividly described in this highly entertaining book…A thoroughly informative book.” ―Revista: The Harvard Review of Latin America
“A historical critique sure to spark debate.” ―Booklist
“The culmination of an oeuvre (All the Shah's Men, Overthrow and others) featuring the Dulles brothers in supporting roles, The Brothers draws them from the shadows, provoking a reevaluation of their influence and its effects.” ―Kirkus.com
“Kinzer tells the fascinating story of the Dulles brothers, central figures in U.S. foreign policy and intelligence activities for over four decades. He describes U.S. efforts to change governments during this period in Iran, Guatemala, Vietnam, Cuba, and other countries in exciting detail.” ―John Deutch, former director, Central Intelligence Agency
“As someone who reported from the Communist prison yard of Eastern Europe, I knew that the Cold War really was a struggle between Good and Evil. But Stephen Kinzer, in this compressed, richly-detailed polemic, demonstrates how at least in the 1950s it might have been waged with more subtlety than it was.” ―Robert D. Kaplan, author of The Revenge of Geography
“A disturbing, provocative, important book. Stephen Kinzer vividly brings the Dulles brothers, once paragons of American Cold War supremacy, to life and makes a strong case against the dangers of American exceptionalism.” ―Evan Thomas, author of Ike's Bluff: President Eisenhower's Secret Battle to Save the World
“The Dulles brothers, one a self-righteous prude, the other a charming libertine, shared a common vision: a world run from Washington by people like themselves. With ruthless determination, they pursued, acquired, and wielded power, heedless of the consequences for others. They left behind a legacy of mischief. Theirs is a whale of a story and Stephen Kinzer tells it with verve, insight, and just the right amount of indignation.” ―Andrew J. Bacevich, author of Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War From Bookforum
Two exceptionally important stories take up the bulk of Kinzer's book, and both are told with considerable insight and disciplined prose.The first is the tale of the "secret world war" of American violence and political subversion in the early half of the Cold War, and this is the story Kinzer most clearly wishes to tell. The second, closely related, is an instiutional saga of the consequences that arose from the shared power of two brothers who simultaneously ran the CIA and the state department—the covert and public faces of American foreign policy. —Chris Bray
ORIGIN OF THE DEEP STATE
The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government
An explosive, headline-making portrait of Allen Dulles, the man who transformed the CIA into the most powerful—and secretive—colossus in Washington, from the founder of Salon.com and author of the New York Times bestseller Brothers.
America’s greatest untold story: the United States’ rise to world dominance under the guile of Allen Welsh Dulles, the longest-serving director of the CIA. Drawing on revelatory new materials—including newly discovered U.S. government documents, U.S. and European intelligence sources, the personal correspondence and journals of Allen Dulles’s wife and mistress, and exclusive interviews with the children of prominent CIA officials—Talbot reveals the underside of one of America’s most powerful and influential figures.
Dulles’s decade as the director of the CIA—which he used to further his public and private agendas—were dark times in American politics. Calling himself “the secretary of state of unfriendly countries,” Dulles saw himself as above the elected law, manipulating and subverting American presidents in the pursuit of his personal interests and those of the wealthy elite he counted as his friends and clients—colluding with Nazi-controlled cartels, German war criminals, and Mafiosi in the process. Targeting foreign leaders for assassination and overthrowing nationalist governments not in line with his political aims, Dulles employed those same tactics to further his goals at home, Talbot charges, offering shocking new evidence in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
“A frightening biography of power, manipulation, and outright treason…The story of Allen Dulles and the power elite that ran Washington, D.C., following World War II is the stuff of spy fiction…All engaged American citizens should read this book and have their eyes opened.” (Kirkus, starred review)
Amazon.com Review
An Amazon Best Book of October 2015: Salon.com co-founder David Talbot’s The Devil’s Chessboard paints a riveting but unflattering picture of longtime CIA chief Allen Dulles (and of his Secretary of State brother, John Foster Dulles) in a nonfiction account covering decades of espionage, questionable tactics, and outright conspiracy. Heaping detail after detail into a dense but fast-flowing account, Talbot has written a book that reads like part Cold War history and part Tom Clancy novel. Both brothers protected the rich and powerful. Both felt they could act outside the rules. Both feared the Soviets and would do seemingly anything to oppose them. Readers will be glad these men are gone, even as they drink up every word written about them. And some will wonder if others have quietly taken their place.--Chris Schluep
From the Back Cover
America’s greatest untold story: the United States’ rise to world dominance under the guile of Allen Welsh Dulles, the longest-serving director of the CIA. Drawing on revelatory new materials, David Talbot exposes the underside of one of America’s most influential figures. The Devil’s Chessboard tells the timely, provocative, and gripping story of the rise of the national security state—and the battle for America’s soul.
About the Author
David Talbot is the author of the New York Times bestseller Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years and the acclaimed national bestseller Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror, and Deliverance in the City of Love. He is the founder and former editor in chief of Salon, and was a senior editor at Mother Jones and the features editor at the San Francisco Examiner. He has written for The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Time, The Guardian, and other major publications. Talbot lives in San Francisco, California.
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