The Alt-right: What Everyone Needs to Know
George Hawley
(Oxford University Press, $16.95)

THE EXTREME right poses all too evident threats in Britain and elsewhere, as the recent attacks on mosques in Christchurch so tragically demonstrate. So this book provides a welcome compilation of information mainly, but not exclusively, focused on the development of the alt-right.

This is a challenging task. As the introduction explains, it is hard to write accurately about fast-moving social movements, especially secretive ones with mostly anonymous supporters. Thus statements about them can transition from being perfectly accurate to woefully outdated with shocking speed as far-right groups emerge, disappear and then re-emerge in different guises at different points in time.

These movements are disparate as well as volatile, not that this provides any grounds for complacency. Even a splintering far right can be extremely dangerous.