The Second Coming of the KKK, Linda Gordon
The Second Coming of the KKK, Linda Gordon
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The Second Coming of the KKK
The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition

Author: Linda Gordon

Narrator: Jo Anna Perrin

Unabridged: 7 hr 43 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 10/24/2017


Synopsis

By legitimizing bigotry and redefining so-called American values, a revived Klan in the 1920s left a toxic legacy that demands reexamination today.

Boasting 4 to 6 million members, the reassembled Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s dramatically challenged our preconceptions of hooded Klansmen, who through violence and lynching had established a Jim Crow racial hierarchy in the 1870s South. Responding to the "emergency" posed by the flood of immigrant "hordes"—Pope-worshipping Irish and Italians, "self-centered Hebrews," and "sly Orientals"—this "second Klan," as award-winning historian Linda Gordon vividly chronicles, spread principally above the Mason-Dixon Line in states like Indiana, Michigan, and Oregon. Condemning "urban" vices like liquor, prostitution, movies, and jazz as Catholic and Jewish "plots" to subvert American values, the rejuvenated Klan became entirely mainstream, attracting middle-class men and women through its elaborate secret rituals and mass "Klonvocations" before collapsing amid revelations of sordid sexual scandals, financial embezzlement, and Ponzi-like schemes. The Klan's brilliant melding of Christian values with racial bigotry and its lightning-like accretion of political power now becomes a sobering parable for the twenty-first century.

About Linda Gordon

Linda Gordon, winner of two Bancroft Prizes and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, is the author of Dorothea Lange and Impounded and coauthor, with Dorothy Sue Cobble and Astrid Henry, of Feminism Unfinished. She is the Florence Kelley Professor of History at New York University and lives in New York and Madison, Wisconsin.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Mary Kay on September 27, 2017

Wow. What can I say? History repeats itself. I felt absolutely chilled in recognizing Trump's campaign in parts of this book, down to the word in some cases. This is the story of the KKK in the 1920s, told in a smart, well-researched and intelligent -- yet accessible -- way. I am not a historian, so......more

Goodreads review by Christopher on July 28, 2018

This analysis of the Second Ku Klux Klan is a decidedly mixed bag. Rather than a narrative history of the Klan's meteoric rise and fall, Gordon stresses its religious, political and cultural dimensions which made it successful, and which continue to animate American politics today. The book is often......more

Goodreads review by Martha on December 10, 2017

This is awfully good. The focus on the KKK in the north is interesting and sheds light on less explored territory, and the constant, ringing parallels to today's political scene are instructive, unsurprising, and horrifying. This study is relevant at all times, but it's particularly so particularly......more

Goodreads review by Amy on May 15, 2019

The Second Coming of the KKK is an excellent account of the resurgence of the Klu Klux Klan during the 1920s, examined mostly in it's historical context but with some comparison to modern right-wing movements today. Mostly, the author let's the eerie similarities between the two speak for themselves......more

Goodreads review by Shrike58 on January 08, 2025

My main reservation when picking up this book is that, even though it was only published in 2017, there has been a lot of water under the bridge since then. However, by hook or by crook, Gordon managed to somewhat "future-proof" themselves by not attempting to add any obvious afterthoughts on the re......more