Posted on March 10, 2024

Fifty Books That Changed My Mind

Anonymous American, American Renaissance, March 10, 2024


Subscribe to future audio versions of AmRen articles here.

This is part of our continuing series of accounts by readers of how they shed the illusions of liberalism and became race realists.

In October 2017, I read a book by Douglas Murray entitled The Strange Death of Europe. It hit me right between the eyes, changed me forever, and started me down a path I could never have imagined. The book chronicles non-European immigration into Europe, the home of my ancestors. As an American, I had never viewed Europe in this way. Even though my North American homeland was being overrun and increasingly controlled by foreigners, I had to read about the systematic destruction of Europe to appreciate the existential threat my people face here. On that day, I joined the struggle for the survival of our people wherever we may dwell. I overnight became an activist at 50 years of age. I also began to acknowledge God. This has helped to lighten the burden of truth I happily bear.

How did I come to read The Strange Death of Europe? Because Amazon Kindle recommended it. But why? I went through the chronology of my purchases and discovered that in 2012, five years before my awakening, I had read a book by Charles Murray, quickly followed by a book by Jared Taylor (If We Do Nothing, perhaps). All I remember about the books was that I viewed them through class rather than through the racial prism. I neither read nor thought about the topics thereafter. This troubles me but also illuminates our unique Northern European capacity for change. Truthfully, I didn’t change. Rather, I read about the existential threat we face framed in a way that pierced my consciousness, pierced my heart. There was NO going back, ever. 

Immediately after reading The Strange Death of Europe, I also read Submission, by Michel Houellebecq, which Strange Death had referenced. Submission is a novel about the Muslim takeover of France. I became obsessed. Then I really dove down the proverbial rabbit hole. It’s only been six years as of this writing, but I have attended numerous conferences, such as American Renaissance and others, in the USA and Europe. Waking up to rabid, mindless protesters and police escorts is surreal. My family and children don’t yet really understand. The fundamental transformation I underwent appears to be accessible only to a few.

In two years, I read Face to Face with Race, edited by Jared Taylor; The Shock of History, by Dominique Venner; Waking Up from the American Dream, by Gregory Hood; works by French nationalist Guillaume Faye; and probably 50 such books in all. I became aware of the slander leveled everywhere against our glorious, collective culture, and the fabrications of historians. In addition to reading the books, I watched video documentaries and listened to podcasts. The visual imagery of European nationalists speaking out with love for our people and civilization or patrolling the streets in Sweden or France to protect their neighborhoods, deepened my feelings about our struggle. Many such channels had already been purged by early 2018 when I woke up, and many others were soon driven off YouTube, such as American Renaissance, Vertigo Politix, and Way of the World, to name a few. 

Then came 2020. By that time, I was not only a man ideologically of the Dissident Right, but a political refugee. My wife, children, and I left our home in the middle of the night in early 2021, speaking to no one as we left for a red state.

Today, I view our plight as much more dire. The pandemic, in my view, was related to our struggle: a desperate effort, perhaps, to stamp out our unique biology forever under a deceptive, authoritarian boot. Which way Western Man? Only we can save ourselves as well as prevent the subjugation or worse of the rest of the world. So Men of the West, and even some extraordinarily heroic women, we are stepping up. May we Europeans grace the planet until the end of days!

If you have a story about how you became racially aware, or about your firsthand experience with race, we’d like to hear it. If it is well written and compelling, we will publish it. Please feel free to use a pen name and send it to us here.