Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.

War for Eternity

Inside Bannon's Far-Right Circle of Global Power Brokers

ebook
1 of 2 copies available
1 of 2 copies available

One of Financial Times' Summer Books of 2020

An explosive and unprecedented inside look at Steve Bannon's entourage of global powerbrokers and the hidden alliances shaping today's geopolitical upheaval.

In 2015, Bloomberg News named Steve Bannon “the most dangerous political operative in America.” Since then, he has grown exponentially more powerful—and not only in the United States. In this groundbreaking and urgent account, award-winning scholar of the radical right Benjamin Teitelbaum takes readers behind-the-scenes of Bannon's global campaign against modernity.

Inspired by a radical twentieth-century ideology called Traditionalism, Bannon and a small group of right-wing powerbrokers are planning new political mobilizations on a global scale—discussed and debated in secret meetings organized by Bannon in hotel suites and private apartments in DC, Europe and South America. Their goal? To upend the world order and reorganize geopolitics on the basis of archaic values rather than modern ideals of democracy, freedom, social progress, and human rights. Their strenuous efforts are already producing results, from the fortification of borders throughout the world and the targeting of immigrants, to the undermining of the European Union and United States governments, and the expansion of Russian influence.

Drawing from exclusive interviews with Bannon’s hidden network of far-right thinkers, years of academic research into the radical right, and with unprecedented access to the esoteric salons where they meet, Teitelbaum exposes their considerable impact on the world and their radical vision for the future.  

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

  • Formats

  • Languages

  • Reviews

    • Kirkus

      March 15, 2020
      A breathless account, with thick coats of conspiracy theory, of the doctrines that drive Steve Bannon. Teitelbaum, whose previous book, Lions of the North (2017), focused on nationalism and anti-immigration activism in Nordic countries, is an ethnomusicologist who has long reported on the radical right. He characterizes his latest book as something between ethnography and investigative journalism. To write an ethnography, an anthropologist has to get inside what used to be called "the native's point of view." To his credit, the author digs deep into the foundations and guiding documents of the ideology that guides Bannon, the author and champion of such things as Donald Trump's border wall and the Muslim ban. That ideology is what Teitelbaum characterizes as "a bizarre underground philosophical and spiritual school with an eclectic if minuscule following throughout the past hundred years"--i.e., Traditionalism, always capitalized. "When combined with anti-immigrant nationalism...it was often a sign of a rare and profound ideological radicalism." While at Harvard, Bannon, by Teitelbaum's account, read libraries full of esoteric religious and philosophical texts that figure into the doctrine; if there's an Illuminati-ish feel to the investigation, it's no accident. The author traveled far and wide to talk to the Traditionalists, who include nationalists, racists, anti-immigrants, and outright kooks as well as surprisingly thoughtful acolytes--Bannon, when not blustering, among them. It takes some reading between the lines to see how Traditionalism works in action, but one element is the widely shared thought that Europe ought to break up into little states. Thus Brexit, whose advocates might be surprised to locate its origins in the view held by a Russian nationalist (and advocate of Ukrainian genocide) that "a Europe fractured into smaller units would...disperse and weaken the power emanating from the United States." A provocative book that, if correct, helps explain the ways of Trump, Putin, Bolsonaro, and other demagogues.

      COPYRIGHT(2020) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

Languages

  • English

Loading