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antony_monir's review against another edition
3.0
I came into this book expecting a nice analysis of political cults and their impact on society. What I got was a basically written history of some political cults on the right and the left (and some therapy cults). My main issue with this book is that its content does not match its thesis. This book claims to look at political cults and their impact on society but it mainly focuses on the impact of the cult on its members. Now, I do not mean to demean these people’s experiences yet I think that focusing on them is not particularly interesting. Everyone knows that cults are awful for their members. What is more interesting is the impact of the cult on wider society. Sadly, this is not covered much in this book. I would say that the introduction and the conclusion of this book are the most interesting parts to read (and the chapter on Ted Grant, because I actually met with followers of his cult). The remainder of this book just looks at the history—the rise and fall—of the various cults. It doesn’t even focus on the “political” part of the cult. I wanted this book to focus on the political aspect of these cults, not just tell me stories about cults that happen to be politics related. A better approach would’ve been to focus on how politics affected these cults. Because at the end of the day, any cult can be “political” but a true political cult is unique in its function in society. For example, Ted Grant and his Militant cult are interesting because of their effect on British politics but also because of the strategies they use to recruit people. That’s what makes these cults different from typical religious cults. I enjoyed the analysis of Leninism and its cult-forming tendency. I thought this analysis to be clever and interesting. Sadly, there is no equivalent analysis for the right wing cults which is a shame. In the end, this book is only of value if you want to learn more about the history of any cult that is mentioned in it. Otherwise, for a general resource regarding cults which I find to be much more useful and well written, I recommend Montell’s Cultish. 3/5.
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