Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5718 in Books
• Published on: 2002-02-08
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 250 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Journalist and broadcaster Jon Ronson's first book Them: Adventures With Extremists is a mostly hilarious, occasionally chastening romp through the shadowy world of paranoid conspiracists. It proves a neat conceit. Ronson, a consummate faux-naïf, inevitably treads similar ground to Louis Theroux, though perhaps with a lighter, more disingenuous patter, which sustains him in encounters that veer from the extraordinary to the mundane at dizzying pace, and blur the space between. He meets Omar, the infuriatingly likeable Islamic fundamentalist organising a jihad from a North London semi, despite a more real struggle with the reprographic world, and PR-conscious Klu Klux Klan leader, Thom Robb, who unaccountably has Jewish mannerisms. Others who allow Ronson to share a window in the life, and possibly into their soul, include David Icke, still believing that the world's ruling elite are descended from reptiles (no, really), Dr Ian Paisley, and Tony Kaye, a Hollywood director, determined to sabotage his own movie, American History X, rather than see it publicly released without his approval. These are easy pickings, but Ronson picks them with unobtrusive and gentle irony.

His main mission, though, is to track down the Bilderberg Group, who reputedly comprise the world's leading figures, and who, it is believed by the likes of Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein and "Soho Bomber" David Copeland, want to enforce global capitalism. As if. However, the alleged sighting of Peter Mandelson, attending a Bilderberg gathering, surely portends more for the British reader. Ronson's escapades--"I am a humorous journalist out of my depth", he informs the British Embassy in Portugal when his car is tailed--uncovers more truth than one would expect, though none greater than the depressing but crushingly realistic notion that even the most powerful public figures are, at play, little more than preppies or undergraduates, who enjoy worshipping owl effigies, wearing false breasts and urinating in public. Luckily, Ronson tires of the corkscrewing paranoia and subterfuge before the reader, leaving a rich impression of a world affirmingly varied and absurd, if endearingly familiar. But, having attended a Bilderberg meeting, perhaps he would, wouldn't he?--David Vincent

Synopsis
"Them: Adventures with Extremists" is a romp into the heart of darkness involving 12-foot lizard-men, PR-conscious Ku Klux Klansmen, Ian Paisley, Hollywood limousines, the legend of Ruby Ridge, Noam Chomsky, a harem of kidnapped sex slaves, David Icke, and Nicolae Ceausescu's shoes. While Jon Ronson attempts to locate the secret room, he is chased by men in dark glasses, unmasked as a Jew in the middle of a Jihad training camp, and witnesses CEOs and leading politicians undertake a bizarre pagan owl ritual in the forests of Northern California. He also learns some alarming things about the looking-glass world of them and us. Are the extremists right? Or has he become one of Them? This is a fascinating investigation into extremists of every stripe. 'A funny and compulsively readable picaresque adventure through a paranoid shadow world' - Louis Theroux, "Guardian". 'Very entertaining and very frightening' - "Q magazine".

Customer Reviews

Entertaining - better than the TV series
Reading this book is a bit like having the TV series on DVD; there's a lot more extras, and the commentary is a lot more in-depth.

This book is all about Jon Ronson (a cross between Woody Allen and Louie Theroux) and his travails as he interviews the world's leading conspiracy theorists. Like Louie Theroux he tends to sit back, play innocent and let his subjects talk themselves into a position of absurdity, but in the book we get more of a chance to read what it would be like to be in the company of these people.

It's amusing, and it's interesting to see how the underlying atmosphere of paranoia starts to get Ronson considering the possibility of even the more absurd thoeries going round.

I do feel that there is a growing streak of journalism in Britain that seeks to make their interviewer's reputations by taking advantage of the vulnerability of their subjects. Louie Theroux does this to some extent and so has Martin Bashir. I feel that there's an element of this here, but there is a real 'scoop' in this book - to get into the Bilderberg meeting was an exceptional achievement, and worth reading the book for on it's own.

The KKK Grand Wizard who was trying to become a moderate was very entertaining too!

a little disorganised, but entertaining and insightful
I enjoyed this book. On the negative side, it is a little unstructured and hops around - the chronology is messy. That said, it is amusingly written, Ronson does a good job of maintaining some sang froid in the face of some more hot-blooded company, such as Alex Jones and Jim Tucker, and in the face of the madness of David Icke.

There is some insight into the world of the Bilderberg Group, and their nutty owl ceremonies. Ronson concludes with a view that I share - conspiracy theories are a new secular religion, a faith. It is interesting how many of the leading conspiracy theorists are already heavily God-fearing individuals. I'd have thought that on its own would have undermined their credibility, but clearly the conspiracy theory fanboys are happy to overlook the idea of these guys praying to some higher force for salvation from the Illuminati. The irony of that certainly isn't wasted on me!

Ronson does a good job of highlighting Alex Jones's bully-boy tactics, his loathing of David Icke (stealing Alex's limelight, it would appear) and interviews with David Icke suggest that 12 foot lizards isn't some code for the Global Elite, he really does believe they can mutate into 12 foot lizards....

Ronson concludes the book with the analysis that it is more frightening for conspiracy theorists to believe that the world is actually spiraling towards some unknown destiny than it is to believe that some-uber powerful group of Jews, 12 foot lizards, investment bankers or whoever are actually pulling the strings and determining our future. A good insight into the weakness of the human condition and our need to find and explanation for every single event, however unplanned or random.

Comic book, no investigative journalism here.
This is an amusing book. Thats it.
It makes Louis Therioux look like an indepth investigative journalist. At least Louis finds an insight into the characters.
Only the last few chapters offer anything interesting and thats just a peak into a redundant clique of wannabes and an interview with Edward Heath.
The author seems more interested in his own secular upbringing than the characters he meets.
For a 'so called' Cardiff boy we expect better.