God, Guns, and Sedition

Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware rightly situate contemporary far-right growth within its long historical context while deftly analyzing today’s unique challenges. A vital addition to the global understanding of supremacist terror and what we might do to turn the tide, and indispensable reading for anyone seeking to understand what is demonstrably the most pressing threat to democracy and social cohesion. – Cynthia Miller-Idriss, author of Hate in the Homeland: The New Global Far RightHoffman and Ware have produced a revealing history of America’s almost uninterrupted experience with domestic terrorism, from the Ku Klux Klan to the January 6 assault on the Capitol. This is an essential volume for understanding the dark side of the American dream and comes with an urgent call to reverse the drift toward violence and disunity. – Lawrence Wright, author of The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9⁄11At a pivotal moment in American history, Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware have given Americans of all stripes a vital guide to the dangers pervading our politics and especially the risk of internecine violence. Few if any other scholars could approach this freighted topic with the historical perspective, disciplinary breadth, and methodological rigor as do Hoffman and Ware. Their writing, moreover, is brisk and stylish, all the better to reach the wide audience this urgently needed book deserves. – Steven Simon, author of Grand Delusion: The Rise and Fall of American Ambition in the Middle EastGods, Guns, and Sedition offers a timely and comprehensive assessment of the evolution of far-right extremism in the United States. Hoffman and Ware identify and analyze the most important trends affecting the far right, uncovering a phenomenon with deep roots, poised to remain a major threat to the security of the country. – Ali H. Soufan, author of Anatomy of Terror: From the Death of bin Laden to the Rise of the Islamic StateBruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware have delivered a crisply written and deeply researched account of the history of far-right terrorism in the United States that will be of great interest both to specialists and general readers. – Peter Bergen, author of The Rise and Fall of Osama bin LadenConnecting Turner to January 6 so explicitly, as Hoffman and Ware do, amounts to nothing short of a new grand narrative of the contemporary far right. – Andrew C. McKevitt * Reviews in American History *A detailed and timely history of the far right and the events leading up to and taking place after the 6 January 2021 insurrection. Policy-makers and researchers will find compelling and actionable arguments and recommendations for limiting burgeoning far-right terrorism—a threat that likely will continue to fester after Trump’s 2025 inauguration. – Charlotte Plews * International Affairs *

Bruce Hoffman is the Shelby Cullom and Kathryn W. Davis Senior Fellow for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is also a professor at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service and professor emeritus of terrorism studies at the University of St Andrews. His Columbia University Press books include Inside Terrorism (third edition, 2017).

Jacob Ware is a research fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service and at DeSales University. He serves on the editorial boards for the academic journal Studies in Conflict & Terrorism and the Irregular Warfare Initiative at the Modern War Institute at West Point.