Britain's funniest and most insightful satirist investigates the world of 'them' and 'us'; Is there really, as the extremists claim, a secret room from which a tiny elite secretly rules the world? And if so, can it be found? Them: Adventures with Extremists is a romp into the heart of darkness involving 12-foot lizard-men, PR-conscious Ku Klux Klansmen, Ian Paisley, Hollywood limousines, the legend of Ruby Ridge, Noam Chomsky, a harem of kidnapped sex slaves, David lcke, and Nicolae Ceausescu's shoes. While Jon Ronson attemps to locate the secret room, he is chased by men in dark glasses, unmasked as a Jew in the middle of a Jihad training camp, and witnesses CEOs and leading politicians undertake a bizarre pagan owl ritual in the forests of Northern California. He also learns some alarming things about the looking-glass world of them and us. Are the extremists right? Or has he become one of Them?

About the Author

Jon Ronson is an award-winning writer and documentary maker. He is the author of three bestsellers: Them: Adventures with Extremists, The Men Who Stare at Goats and The Psychopath Test, and two collections, Out of the Ordinary: True Tales of Everyday Craziness and What I Do: More True Tales. He lives in London.

Reviews

U.K. journalist Ronson offers a look into the world of political, cultural and religious "extremists" who dwell at the edges of popular culture and the conspiracy theorists who love them. His only criteria for groups' inclusion as extremists is "that they have been called extremists by others," which may explain why the Anti-Defamation League is profiled along with the modern-day KKK, radical Northern Ireland Protestant spokesperson Dr. Ian Paisley and a former BBC sportscaster who believes the world is ruled by a race of alien lizards. The best as well as most timely and unsettling of these essays follows Omar Bakri Mohammed, a radical Islamic militant, on his often bumbling effort to organize British Muslims into a jihad. (Bakri was arrested after September 11.) Ronson's journalism is motivated less out of a duty to inform the public than a desire to satisfy his own curiosity. At the heart of the book is Ronson's quest to find the Bilderberg Group, a secret cabal said to meet once a year to set the agenda of the "New World Order." Fortunately for the reader, his efforts lead somewhere: an informant tracks Bilderberg to a golf resort in Portugal; later, a prominent British politician and Bilderberg founder discusses it on the record. Once viewed up close through Ronson's light, ironic point of view, these "extremists" appear much less scary than their public images would suggest. It is how he reveals the all-too-real machinations of Western society's radical fringe and its various minions that makes this enjoyable work rather remarkable. (Jan.) Forecast: In the U.K., Ronson's book was accompanied by a five-part BBC documentary, which helped make him into a star. If he can capitalize on media appearances here, this may turn into a quick cult hit. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

'A funny and compulsively readable picaresque adventure through a paranoid shadow world' Louis Theroux, Guardian; 'Very entertaining and very frightening' Q magazine

British journalist and filmmaker Ronson spent the last five years with extremists: religious fundamentalists in Great Britain, Texas, and Cameroon; white supremacists in Arkansas, Michigan, and Idaho; and New World Order conspiracy chasers in Portugal and California. Despite their differences, all seem to believe that the world is controlled by an elite group known as "them." Although one may not find, say, the Ku Klux Klan funny on the surface, Ronson, well known for his "Human Zoo" column in the Guardian, makes each essay engaging by pointing out the irony of it all and accentuating the characters' foibles. He also presents their humanity the same humanity they would deny to others. Yet between the lines of satire, the extremists are unmasked for what they really are. They come off, above all, as mundane. This book was accompanied in Britain by a five-part TV documentary, The Secret Rulers of the World. Recommended for all academic and public libraries. Lee Arnold, Historical Soc. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.