Winner of the Charles H. Cooley Award from the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction.
Richard G. Mitchell Jr. spent more than a dozen years among survivalists at public conferences, private meetings, and clandestine training camps across America. He takes us inside a compelling, hidden world more connected to the chaos of modern life many of us experience than the label "separatist" suggests. In survivalism Mitchell found a profound and meaningful critique of contemporary industrial society, a subculture in which the real evil is not repressive government but the far more insidious influence of a "Planet Microsoft" mentality with its abundance of empty choices. Survivalists, Mitchell shows us, are seeking resistance, not struggling against it, they are looking for ways to define themselves and test their talents in a society that is becoming devitalized and formless.