Belew’s chilling backstory to today’s alt-right movement starts with the disillusioned aftermath of Vietnam. As has happened following every modern war, the KKK and similar organizations saw a surge in membership as the U.S. ended its involvement in Vietnam. Supremacist groups gained both a renewed sense of purpose and new recruits from disaffected Vietnam veterans, active-duty personnel, and their embittered civilian supporters. The white power movement then declared war on the government, launching a string of violent actions that ranged from arms trafficking and assassinations to harassment of Vietnamese refugees and the creation of militarized compounds at Ruby Ridge and Waco. Drawing on the notion of “leaderless resistance,” Belew, an assistant professor in the Department of History and the College at the University of Chicago, shows how the sanctioned violence of war spawns its paramilitary cousin.