It Can Happen Here: White Power and the Rising Threat of Genocide in the US by Alexander Laban Hinton is a challenging and timely book that is a must-read for anyone concerned about social justice, equality, and the future of American society, as it offers a critical examination of the roots of white power extremism and provides a hopeful path forward for a nation in crisis.

This book is so upsetting because it's so easy to see how accurate it is. Definitely a book that should be added to the anti-racist booklists as a resource for how white supremacism walks out in the open and the myriad ways it insidiously permeates society. This book is terribly frightening but it does offer a way to combat and educate--will anyone in power listen?

It Can Happen Here is an academic examination of extremist ideology and the increasing possibility of genocide in the USA by Dr. Alexander Laban Hinton. Released 8th June 2021 by NYU Press, it's 304 pages and is available in hardcover and ebook formats.

This is an erudite and well written monograph on the open rise of white extremism in the USA and a reasoned, logical examination of the ways in which it could give rise to genocide and, most importantly, concrete methods to avoid this outcome. The author is an academic and internationally recognized expert in this field and this is what I would call a layman accessible academic treatise of the ideas in all their incarnations as they intersect culture and history. As an academic work, it is *full* of annotations, notes, and minutiae (in a good way). I stopped often to read the background of some of his points in context (many of them link to online resources which are accessible by anyone).

The author knows what he's talking about. He writes perceptively and quite chillingly of what's happened, what's currently happening, and what the possible outcomes are. In short, it *can* happen in the USA and pretending that it's completely impossible and unthinkable is a desperately dangerous ignorance which we can't afford.

Five stars. I learned quite a lot from this book. Much of it made me sad and angry. It was in no way an "easy" read. I would recommend it for library acquisition and also for readers of history and culture.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

So you're basically auditing one of Hinton's classes at Rutgers, wherein you're systematically uncovering how likely it is that the US could begin performing a crime such as genocide and, in the midst of that, exploring how we've all but done it in the past.

As Americans, we're quick to feel as if we're in some sort of figurative tower, somehow above and beyond other places without our freedoms and amenities; Hinton exposes our comfort as ignorance but while also refraining from becoming accusatory or harsh. His questions poise the reader toward reflection and growth--this is not only a mark of how good he is at teaching, but how learned he surely must be in exploring these tense, volatile matters in public forums.

There's an education to be had not only in terms of the potential for crimes of genocide under a Trump presidency, but an analysis of cultural genocide in our country, perspective on why white supremacists act as they have by illuminating their most oft-cited resources and argument points (e.g. The 14 Words). The section on white replacement, honestly, is one that I've run into frequently, even when the people I'm speaking to can't quite articulate it.

It's not at all meant to be an echo chamber for the left-leaning or anyone who's anti-Trump; to the contrary, it's a sweeping aid in picking apart why the far-right would be in a position to indulge in violent acts that they wouldn't have considered to perform just ten years ago (yep, it's because they felt that they had the support of the White House itself). We often can better sympathize with a group and, more importantly, diminish divisive thought, when we try to stop referring to someone as "the other" and work to understand them and their points of view. Hinton is by no means looking to ask a person of color to cut a Proud Boy some slack, but learning what the "other side" draws from is an integral part of remaining civilized and, well, preserving one of the greatest things about this country (and the world).

I'm truly just scratching the surface of the content. Very glad I read it, and it gave me lots of useful information going forward.

Many thanks to NYU Press and NetGalley for the advance read.