Them: Adventures with Extremists
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Narrated by:
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Jon Ronson
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By:
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Jon Ronson
About this listen
Them began as a book about different kinds of extremists, but after Jon had got to know some of them - Islamic fundamentalists, neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klansmen - he found that they had one oddly similar belief: that a tiny, shadowy elite rule the world from a secret room. In Them, Jon sets out, with the help of the extremists, to locate that room. The journey is as creepy as it is comic, and along the way Jon is chased by men in dark glasses, unmasked as a Jew in the middle of a Jihad training camp, and witnesses international CEOs and politicians participate in a bizarre pagan ritual in the forests of northern California.
Them is a fascinating and entertaining exploration of extremism, in which Jon learns some alarming things about the looking-glass world of ‘them’ and ‘us’. Are the extremists on to something? Or has Jon become one of Them?
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The Missing JFK Assassination Film is not the typical JFK assassination book. This book does not attempt to answer the question of who killed John F. Kennedy; instead it addresses why we should question the actions of those involved and why the truth was withheld from the people. Though copies of Orville Nix's film exist, the original film is missing. Why? The FBI confiscated Orville's camera for several months, then returned it in pieces. Were these actions sinister, or were they just examples of governmental incompetence?
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Another book that adds to the conspiracy.
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A seasoned war correspondent, Jeffrey Gettleman has covered every major conflict over the past 20 years, from Afghanistan to Iraq to the Congo. For the past decade, he has served as the East Africa bureau chief for the New York Times, fulfilling his teenage dream of living in Africa. Love, Africa is the story of how he got there - and of his difficult, winding path toward becoming a good reporter and a better man.
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Loved this book!!!
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Hellhound on His Trail
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On April 23, 1967, Prisoner #416J, an inmate at the notorious Missouri State Penitentiary, escaped in a breadbox. Fashioning himself Eric Galt, this nondescript thief and con man - whose real name was James Earl Ray -drifted through the South, into Mexico, and then Los Angeles, where he was galvanized by George Wallace's racist presidential campaign. With relentless storytelling drive, Sides follows Galt and King as they crisscross the country, one stalking the other, until the crushing moment at the Lorraine Motel.
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History Comes Alive
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On Wings of Eagles
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When two of his American employees were held hostage in a heavily guarded prison fortress in Iran, one man took matters into his own hands: American businessman H. Ross Perot. His team consisted of a group of volunteers from the executive ranks of his corporation, hand-picked and trained by a retired Green Beret officer. To free the imprisoned Americans, they would face incalculable odds on a mission that only true heroes would have dared.
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Was the narrator in a hurry?
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Watergate
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For all the monumental documentation that Watergate generated - uncountable volumes of committee records, court transcripts, and memoirs - it falls at last to a novelist to perform the work of inference (and invention) that allows us to solve some of the scandal’s greatest mysteries - who did erase those eighteen-and-a-half minutes of tape? - and to see this gaudy American catastrophe in its human entirety. In Watergate, Thomas Mallon conveys the drama and high comedy of the Nixon presidency through the urgent perspectives of seven characters we only thought we knew.
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A great listen
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Erica Sparks is a beautiful and ambitious reporter who has just landed her dream job at Global News Network in New York. And while it was hard to leave Jenny, her cherished eight-year-old daughter, in the custody of her ex-husband, Erica is determined to succeed in the cutthroat world of big-time broadcasting. On her very first assignment, Erica inadvertently witnesses - and films - a horrific tragedy, scooping all the other networks. Mere weeks later, another tragedy strikes - again, right in front of Erica and her cameras. Her career skyrockets overnight, but Erica is troubled.
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Won't buy any more of Lis Whiel's books
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Tim Reiterman's Raven provides the seminal history of the Rev. Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple, and the murderous ordeal at Jonestown in 1978. This PEN Award-winning work explores the ideals gone wrong, the intrigue, and the grim realities behind the Peoples Temple and its implosion in the jungle of South America.
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What a very thoroughly written book!
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When Finn, a former British spy, is poisoned by a Russian assassin, his ex-boss Adrian, chief of MI6, wants vengeance. He also wants answers - information that only Finn's widow, Anna, knows. Taken to America for protection and information, the former Russian agent faces her greatest test: to ensure her freedom and protect her child, she must uncover the full truth before anyone else - even as friend and foe both set her in their sights.
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will keep you guessing right up to the end
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Kim Barker is not your typical, impassive foreign correspondent—she is candid, self-deprecating, laugh-out-loud funny. At first an awkward newbie in Afghanistan, she grows into a wisecracking, seasoned reporter with grave concerns about our ability to win hearts and minds in the region. In The Taliban Shuffle, Barker offers an insider’s account of the “forgotten war” in Afghanistan and Pakistan, chronicling the years after America’s initial routing of the Taliban, when we failed to finish the job.
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Warring Your Way to Peace Does Not Work
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Pamela Olson, a small town girl from eastern Oklahoma, had what she always wanted: a physics degree from Stanford University. But instead of feeling excited for what came next, she felt consumed by dread and confusion. This irresistible memoir chronicles her journey from aimless ex-bartender to Ramallah-based journalist and foreign press coordinator for a Palestinian presidential candidate.
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Palestine from the Inside—and Out
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K Blows Top
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Khrushchev's 1959 trip across America was one of the strangest exercises in international diplomacy ever conducted. He told jokes, threw tantrums, sparked a riot in a San Francisco supermarket, wowed coeds in an Iowa home-economics class, and ogled Shirley MacLaine. He befriended and offended a cast of characters including Nelson Rockefeller and Marilyn Monroe. The trip took place in the 50s, with the shadow of the hydrogen bomb hanging over his visit like the Sword of Damocles.
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K Steals Show
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What listeners say about Them: Adventures with Extremists
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Dubi
- 04-13-16
The Lunatic Fringe
Around 20 years ago, gonzo journalist Jon Ronson embedded himself with a series of figures on the lunatic fringes of politics and society, including a young radio host specializing in extreme conspiracy theories by the name of Alex Jones. Ronson went in with Jones to expose Bohemian Grove, a forest retreat for the world's rich and powerful, where supposedly pagan rituals took place as the participants planned their means of world domination.
Cut to today, where Jones has become mainstreamed, helped elect a president, and came full circle by getting himself banned from social media platforms for his continued espousal of lunatic and fringe ideas, most notoriously saying that the Sandy Hook massacre was staged by actors. Fortunately, other figures Ronson wrote about in 2001 got nowhere near that far, like the self-proclaimed son of god claiming that the world was run by giant shape-shifting alien lizards.
What makes these stories work so well is the way Ronson inserts himself into the world of people who should be wary of him. He has a way of portraying himself as naive, and he has a way of seeming sympathetic enough to be trusted, even though some of the people he embeds with should hate him for being Jewish, like the would-be pre-September 11 jihadist, a klan leader, and the aforementioned lizard guy, the belief being that when he says lizards he really means, you guessed it.
Add to that Ronson's own narration of his work, which perfectly conveys the tone that wins the trust of his subjects. He is always engaging, often hilarious. His books really are a treat, even if some of it is, beneath the humorous tone, quite scary.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Sarah Easter
- 07-30-20
The right book for the right time
Someone recommended this book to me in late 2019. I’m only upset that I didn’t hear it sooner! Jon Ronson shares a variety of perspectives with empathy and low-key humor. I can’t say I ever laughed out loud, but I was constantly amused at his point of view and interested to hear what happened next. In a time of extreme views, echo chambers and Covid, this book helped me remember that we didn’t start the fire and things aren’t always as they seem. Enjoy!
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3 people found this helpful
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- Joshua Kring
- 05-20-15
The Them review
Any additional comments?
For those of you who are uninitiated with Jon Ronson I would advise you not to start with this book as it was written before 9/11 and considering the subject matter is rather dated now. I am a huge Jon Ronson fan and strongly recommend that you check out his books, but maybe start with Lost at Sea or The Psychopath Test.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I especially liked the interviews with Rachael and Randy Weaver of Ruby Ridge fame. I’ve read some books on the Ruby Ridge catastrophe in the past and consider it one of the most outlandish acts of government tyranny in American history. So, to hear from the people involved in that event was edifying.
Ronson’s attempted infiltration of a secret Builderburg meeting in Portugal was exciting and scary, yet somehow comical in a way that only Jon Ronson can pull off. That’s what I love about him. He gets himself in some of the most intense and harrowing situations and relates them in a humorous and almost deadpan way. It’s hard to explain. You just have to listen to his books to understand.
The best part of this book was the last chapter. I don’t like giving spoilers. So, I’ll just say that what he and his strange companions discover wasn’t what was expected. Their different reactions upon witnessing the exact same thing is really in essence what the whole book is about. It’s probably the best ending to any of Ronson’s books.
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- Cap'n
- 12-13-13
Great Listen.
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Yes. Ronson's writing itself is worth the credit. His understated sense of humor and self-deprecating tone are refreshing without being too cute. I would probably listen to a book about wallpaper if he'd written it so the fact that this book deals with outlandish people and tension-filled situations makes the listen all the more enjoyable.
What does Jon Ronson bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
I prefer audio books read by their authors, particularly when the authors have a deadpan delivery and are not over-polished readers. I think others have mentioned this: there is some similarity between Ronson and Bryson in terms of tone, both in speaking and in prose. Bryson fans might appreciate this work and other Ronson-read Ronson books.He inserts a lot of information and opinion between the lines; His narration makes it is easier to pick up on these subtleties.
What’s the most interesting tidbit you’ve picked up from this book?
Not so much a tidbit -- more like a life lesson ... Equanimity is the best defense against madness. Ronson's relative evenness and disinclination to be drawn into defensive rhetoric or shouting matches, throw the madness of some of his subjects into greater relief than could ever be achieved through righteous anger or spirited criticism. It is interesting to me that his brand of faux naivete, his almost willful refusal to condemn anyone or anything wholesale, allows him to gain so much access to the inner workings of some extremely strange and some extremely dangerous minds.
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- Greenmachineiijh
- 07-04-17
A Levelheaded Approach to Uniquely Human Condition
Listening to Jon Ronson's account of his time with extremists was both amusing and educative. It showed how often the monsters and bogeymen of the current political climate are often far more banal than we are lead to believe. The book also highlights the way in which lack of good communication and lack of acknowledgement of our shared humanity carries people out to the fringes of thought as well as behavior.
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- michael runner
- 06-20-20
Fascinating us or them?
I thought this might be dated, but it isn't. It's relevant disturbing and at times very funny. Jon's reading is brilliant as always. As with so much of John writes, you can't help but asking yourself questions when reading. We thing we know the extremists, the "them" but maybe we are the "them".
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- TM
- 09-12-14
Silly, but Serious
Any additional comments?
I've been a huge fan of Louis Theroux for many years, and to me Jon Ronson's book strikes the same tone as one of Louis' shows.
By building a rapport with people who have very extreme beliefs and opinions, they are humanized. One can even empathize to a degree. This is a much more productive policy than simply demonizing or disregarding them.
In most extremists there is a grain of something real that should be considered and built in to our own thinking. However, that is not to overlook the fact that many of these people are essentially delusional and even dangerous.
That is the most important aspect of Jon's book and Louis' shows - whilst opening our minds to empathize and relate, they also illuminate where the reasonable become unreasonable and the understandable become outrageous. And best of all this demarkation is often hilarious and self-evident when exposed by a reasonable person repeating the ludicrous words back to the ludicrous people who just spoke them.
It is genius and a service to the world in my opinion.
I am sure that Jon's book would have lost much of the humor and nuance had it been read by another narrator, so well done Jon.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Jennifer C
- 12-19-17
Interesting
I found this book a fun way to look at the things from the other perspective. I still believe most of these people are crazy but it was interesting to see some of their suspected ideas were true.
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- Brooke O
- 01-08-17
Always excellent
I've never been disappointed by the content of a Jon Ronson book and he's also very pleasing to listen to. I read this book several years ago and it is still relevant, interesting, informative, and darkly funny on occasion.
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- Tintin
- 06-17-17
Insight into the not-quite-so-crazy extreme
After "Shamed" I had to hear more Ronson, and this was another fascinating set of stories. This time he goes semi undercover into the heart of Islamic jihadist organization, the spectrum of white supremacist groups, am elite world of Jewish movie moguls, he shadows a mysterious wealthy eccentric, and visits what appears to be a secret drunken summer camp for would--be and world leaders. He's personable and only semi under cover -- most of the time he reveals himself as a journalist. Extremists of all stripes seem generally to like him, which makes these encounters more intimate and revealing.
Ronson's perspective on all this is measured, balancing nuances pro and con all the way. He puts himself in the most uncomfortable places protected by nerves of steel and a good heart. And he can tell a good story.
I gave it 4 because I found fewer parallels and connections between the stories, as I did moreso with "Shamed." It was an enlightening listen, and entertaining, with food for thought. I'm looking forward to hearing more from Jon Ronson; he has a unique gift.
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