|
| William Dudley Pelley: A Life in Right-Wing Extremism And the Occult (Religion and Politics) | 
 enlarge | Author: Scott Beekman
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $34.95
Buy New: $22.39
You Save: $12.56 (36%)
New (13) Used (6) from $22.39
Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 476509
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 269
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.2 x 1
ISBN: 0815608195
Dewey Decimal Number: 818.5209
EAN: 9780815608196
ASIN: 0815608195
Publication Date: November 30, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: We ship promptly, same or next business day. Clean text. Includes delivery confirmation with tracking number emailed to you date of shipment. Excellent customer service. Please contact us any time with questions you may have.(pol)
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Book Description
The first full-length biography of William Dudley Pelley, an important figure in the development of right-wing extremism in the United States called by detractors the "Star-Spangled Fascist." William Dudley Pelley was one of the most important figures of the anti-Semitic radical right in the twentieth century. Best remembered as the leader of the paramilitary "Silver Shirts," Pelley was also an award-winning short story writer, Hollywood screenwriter, and religious leader. During the Depression Pelley was a notorious presence in American politics; he ran for president on a platform calling for the ghettoization of American Jews and was a defendant in a headlinegrabbing sedition trial thanks to his unwavering support for Nazi Germany. Scott Beekman offers not only a political but also an intellectual and literary biography of Pelley, greatly advancing our understanding of a figure often dismissed as a madman or charlatan. His belief system, composed of anti-Semitism, economic nostrums, racialism, neo-Theosophical channeling, and millenarian Christianity, anticipates the eclecticism of later cult personalities such as Shoko Asahara, leader of Aum Shinrikyo, and the British conspiracy theorist David Icke. By charting the course of Pelley's career, Beekman does an admirable job of placing Pelley within the history of both the anti-Semitic right and American occult movements. This exhaustively researched book is a welcome addition to the growing body of scholarship on American extremism and esoteric religions.
|
| Customer Reviews:
 An extremely flawed work about an obscure Right-wing radical August 28, 2006
13 out of 18 found this review helpful
I ordered this book in hopes of learning a bit about Pelley, which for some unknown reason interested me somewhat. I quickly became disappointed. The book's cover and pages are very nice, but from there it goes downhill. It is very shallow, and doesn't go close to either the man or his life, at all. Its best side is perhaps its short summaries of Pelley's peculiar thoughts and his quite personal and somewhat inconsistent Weltanschauung. Mr. Beekman tends to (in full accordance with Dr. Kevin MacDonald's theories about what I assume is Mr. Beekman's ethnic background) constantly dismiss the idea that there might be even the slightest grain of truth in any "anti-Semitic" opinion. It becomes so blatantly obvious that he is biased, that I considered not even finishing the book. Jews run Hollywood? Insane. Jews have a tendency to be overrepresented in the media? Hilarious. Reading a biography where the biographer suggests his object is deranged every other chapter, tends to get somewhat annoying in the long run.
The only reason to buy this extremely biased and un-scientific book I can think of, (and the only reason I gave it two stars) is its rather large and well-researched bibliography and note-section. But in my opinion, it's not worth its cost at all, seeing that this book should never have been published. I finished the book, but I don't feel I have much more knowledge about the life and person of William D. Pelley than I did beforehand, and wasn't that the entire purpose of the publication?
 William Dudley Pelley and the Silver Shirts. July 3, 2006
17 out of 18 found this review helpful
_William Dudley Pelley: A Life in Right-Wing Extremism and the Occult_ by Scott Beekman is a biography of a fascinating and bizarre figure in Depression-era America who led a far right organization, the Silver Shirts, which championed the cause of Hitler and opposed the entry of the United States into the Second World War. While the author is obviously a (respectable) liberal, this biography nonetheless is mostly fair to Pelley and even notes the unconstitutional nature of the repressive measures taken against him by the government. Pelley (1890-1965) was a strange character who began his career as a small-town newspaper writer and novelist and eventually turned towards extremism and occultism. To understand Pelley's turn to extremism, anti-Semitism, and occultism it is probably necessary to understand the times in which he lived and the growing disorder in America which grew as an economic consequence of the Great Depression. Pelley came from old New England stock, the son of a former Methodist pastor, and idealized the kind of community that grew in small-town America. He came to see this small-town old America destroyed by Jews, communists, and subversives, and along with an increasingly alienated private life, came to embrace extremism as an answer to these difficulties. Pelley's religious beliefs also were altered as he came to embrace spiritualism and occultism, though maintaining that he was a true Christian. Unfortunately, the author does not really explain the full extent to which Pelley underwent a transformation from a disgruntled small-town newspaper writer (who eventually would write for Hollywood) to a virulent anti-Semite and political extremist though we are led to believe that his encounters with Russian communists during a voyage to Japan played some role in this. Perhaps the reason for this is because having to explain the full nature of Pelley's conversion would have to touch on issues which are not politically correct or to be discussed in polite society. Nevertheless, this biography offers an excellent account of the life of this obscure individual.
The author begins with the early years of Pelley's life. Pelley was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, though much of his youth would be spent in Vermont. His father began as a Methodist pastor, but eventually left this occupation and became a struggling businessman. (His father was eventually to become interested in the Jehovah's Witnesses, a group which was actively persecuted by the government for their opposition to the entry of the United States into the World War and disappear completely from Pelley's life.) Pelley had many interests as a youth, though he quickly became interested in the publication of newspapers and was especially motivated by his idolization of Elbert Hubbard, a popularizer of the arts and crafts movement. In Pelley's early writings (both his newspapers and novels) he became a champion of small-town America, hard work, and old American values, while at the same time mirroring many of the values of the Progressive movement and the Social Gospel movement among Protestants. Pelley's earliest political writings championed a kind of socialism, motivated largely by his reading of Bellamy's _Looking Backward_. Pelley married Marion Harriet Stone and became a struggling newspaper writer and novelist whose most famous novels took place in the fictional small-town of Paris, Vermont until 1918 when he traveled to Asia and Japan. It should be pointed out that originally Pelley supported the American war against the Germans and blamed the Germans for the Bolshevik revolution as did many ardent patriots at the time. However, during his trip to Asia he encountered the communists in Siberia. Along with the various anti-Semitic conspiracy theories circulating at the time among American military men, his journeys into communist Asia may have prompted his newfound anti-Semitic understanding. Pelley also developed an ambiguous attitude towards the Japanese, alternately praising and castigating them. Upon returning to the U.S., Pelley became involved in several other ventures eventually leading to his growing estrangement from his wife Marion. He would travel to California where he would continue to write his novels for Hollywood. However, Pelley became more and more dissatisfied with his private life as well as with the direction America was taking and increasingly lashed out at Hollywood and Jews. It should be noted that it was while working for Hollywood that Pelley began taking part in spiritualist seances and began to develop his occult religious beliefs. While traveling between his various homes in California, Vermont, and later New York, Pelley became involved in several allegedly platonic relationships with various women and would eventually leave his wife. Pelley experienced a life-transforming "seven minutes in eternity", in which he claimed to have made contact with the spirit world, in which he developed his "Liberation" beliefs. He came increasingly to focus on the issue of race and came to view various "dark souls" as part of lesser races. Pelley subsequently was to enter the world of extremism and create the Silver Shirts, a legion dedicated to anti-communism and opposition to international finance which embraced a form of Christian economics (similar to Pelley's earlier quasi-socialist writings) as outlined in Pelley's work _No More Hunger_. Pelley's political beliefs became more and more extreme as he praised Hitler, opposed the New Deal, and referred to Roosevelt as a "Jew". Pelley was to subsequently encounter financial difficulties which led to his being investigated for fraud. Later he was to face trial on charges of sedition as part of the great sedition trial farce (see for example the work _A Trial on Trial_ by Maximilian St.-George and Lawrence Dennis). The charges brought against Pelley were largely unproved and were brought about by his encounter with his nemesis Martin Dies (D-Tex.) of the House Un-American Activities Committee, who even the author admits may have represented a counter-type to Pelley similarly motivated by a love for a quiet small-town America free from extremists, as part of the Brown Scare. Pelley subsequently was to serve a prison sentence until 1950. When Pelley was released he could no longer publicly write about political matters, though he would privately maintain his beliefs in a Jewish-communist-United Nations conspiracy, and devoted most of his time to developing his "Soulcraft" religious system. Pelley's beliefs became increasingly bizarre and ended up incorporating elements of spiritualism, reincarnation, and even UFO encounters (the relationship between various UFO cults and esoteric Nazism remains an interesting one as well as the relationship between Pelley's belief system and the "I AM" Movement). Pelley came to be seen as a martyr for the far right and several individuals tried to revive both his Christian economics (based largely on the theories of Bellamy and Social Credit) and his spiritualistic beliefs. Pelley died in 1965.
This book is an excellent biography of an eccentric and obscure character on the outer fringes of political and spiritual thought. It provides a fascinating account of both his life and beliefs and is mostly fair to both.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
