Book Club: First Pick
The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition
I can’t say much about this book, because it is one of the books on the list where I’ve only read a few specific pages based on hunting through the index for specific references.
I will say that, unlike many other texts written by academics (Linda Gordon is a professor of history and University Professor of the Humanities at New York University), it’s engagingly written and not overburdened with a lot of complicated academic buzzwords, so it makes an ideal reading for people who aren’t historians by trade.
Excluding the appendices and notes, the book also only clocks in at 209 pages. So we aren’t starting out with a tome that will put you to sleep.
The book has 11 chapters, plus an introduction and preface. So here’s how we’ll break up the reading for the club.
Preface, introduction, chapter 1 (Rebirth)
Chapter 2 & 3 (Ancestors & Structures of Feeling)
Chapter 4 & 5 (Recuruitment, Ritual, and Profit & Spectacles and Evangelicals)
Chapter 6 & 7 (Vigilantism and Manliness & KKK Feminism)
Chapter 8 & 9 (Oregon and the Attack on Parochial Schools & Politcal and Economic Warfare)
Chapter 10 & 11 (Constituents & Legacy: Down But Not Out)
I think about 2 weeks per section is enough time for every to read each section.
As for the book clubs “meetings” I have two ways to interact and you can choose to participate in both or just in one, whatever your preference is.
There will be a “chat” on Discord for the book club. This will be ongoing for each book as we go, so we can share thoughts and ask questions as we read the book together.
Here’s a Beginner’s Guide to Discord for those who aren’t familiar and a YouTube video starter guide as well:
The second is that I would like to have a video chat (or voice chat) via Zoom or Discord (or some other option I haven’t thought of yet) after we finish each section of the reading. We can schedule these as we go.
I’d like to record these and post them as episodes of the podcast, so please keep that in mind when deciding if you want to participate in those.
You can find the book on Amazon (currently $9.99 for Kindle, but there are new and used physical copies for a variety of prices). If you can’t stand Amazon, you can also buy it from Barnes and Noble (also $9.99 for the ebook).
If you cannot afford the book (I get it, we’re all broke) please let me know and I’ll see what I can do to make it accessible for you.