Rural Radicals: Righteous Rage in the American Grain

How is it that whites from the rural heartland, long romanticized in popular culture as the salt of the American earth, have come to make up the United States' most violent domestic terrorist movements, including militias, Identity Christians and other ""hate radicals""? In the wake of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, allegedly the work of blue-eyed Timothy McVeigh, historian Stock has attempted to trace the lineage of today's extremist white rural politics. She draws clear links between contemporary hate groups and a long tradition of rural political movements characterized by a fierce commitment to the rights of small landowners and family farmers, and by a culture of vigilantism. This tradition has never fit into urban categories of left and right. As far back as colonial times, she points out, rural Americans have organized simultaneous opposition, often violent, to elite Eastern landowners and elite Eastern government: such high-school textbook examples as Shays's Rebellion, the Whisky Rebellion and the Grange movement are just a few illustrations of the point. Rural Radicals is a wild ride, particularly for readers yet unfamiliar with the recent trend in history of conducting research from the perspective of less powerful groups; yet it vividly demonstrates the value of this approach. Photos not seen by PW. (Oct.)