The Extreme Gone Mainstream

Miller-Idriss walks a tightrope in her illuminating book on the commercialization and fashion of far-right German culture. On one hand, she repeatedly implies that the tangible results of this commercialization have the power to create or shape far-right ideologues. On the other hand, the evidence Miller-Idriss presents paints the word shape to be a misnomer - as it doesn't seem that clothing or other commercialization has the power to mold something from a tabula rasa. Instead, the argument created from the empirical evidence presented seems one that clearly demonstrates fashion strengthening far-right views of nationalism and xenophobia, but not without the previous existence of those views. Perhaps this disconnect between initial thesis and evidence is exacerbated by the structure of the argument. The structure is such that the chapters sometimes seem an effort to describe the clothing physically rather than use it as evidence in a larger argument, so the argument occasionally gets lost.

Although I've been mostly negative, that's only because the negative aspects require more words to point out. The good aspects of the book are much easier to show, and there are many more. The book has tremendous value as an illustration of a purposefully insider culture, as a deep-dive into far-right semiotics, and as a dissertation ripe for extrapolation into other fields, regions, and studies. The methodology is concise and holistic (although the casual reader unfamiliar with social sciences may find the empirical discussions difficult). The chapters on coded messages (2), connections to Norse mythology (3), and issues with banning far-right symbols (5) are especially interesting from the perspective of someone unfamiliar with contemporary German culture. Overall, a good book with a single misstep.