Do you belong to a cult?

Borden, Jane.  Cults Like Us: Why Doomsday Thinking Drives America.  New York: Atria/One 

         Signal Publishers, 2025.  ISBN: 9781668007808  

 

Do you self identify as American? Do you hold to the so-called "American Dream" however you define it?  Mind you the "American Dream" is aspirational, not reality.  Do you hold that following particular rules will lead to wealth and prosperity?   Or do you believe that only the "chosen" will succeed and be blessed with wealth?  In Cults Like Us, Jane Borden takes these concepts and more in a deep dive into a variety of organizations and movements to try and make the case for all Americans being infected with cult-like thinking with specifics being provided..

 

Jane Borden opens the book with an alternative view of Columbus's reasons for discovering the New World then segueing into the Separatists/Pilgrim's voyage in 1620.  She conflates the Separatists and later Puritan settlers beliefs and practices into the Protestant work ethic that some claim infects the core American values.  She then uses various aspects of group psychology as placeholders to examine various cults.

 

The meat of the book is Jane Borden's dive into various cults and cult adjacent groups of various flavors.  There is the Church Universal and Triumphant, Christian Nationalism, the Oneida Community and related communes of the 1800s, the manifest destiny myth, the various "hidden rulers" conspiracy theorists (think Deep State these days), anti-intellectualism, rural/urban identity clashes, personal growth scams such as Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness (M.S.I.A) and NXIVM which had roots with Phineas P. Quimby and Mary Baker Eddy are covered in several chapters..  Amway and other multilevel marketing organizations have their own chapter.  Then there is the chapter populated with us-vs-them cults such as the Nuwaubians, the Moonies, Scientology, and Heaven's Gate.  The final chapter looks at compensatory control groups through the lens of Love Has Won, the American monomyth, and the Internet.  

 

If you are looking for examples of how cults have shaped and are still shaping American culture, pick up Jane Borden's Cults Like US, but don't expect step-by-step solutions.  Those you need to figure out for yourself.  

 

June 1944 and the 82nd Airborne!

Donovan, James.  Nothing But Courage: The 82nd Airborne's Daring D-Day Mission and Their 

        Heroic Charge Across the La Fiere Bridge.  New York: Caliber, 2025.  ISBN: 9780593184875 

D-Day 1944 France.  Before the soldiers landed on the Normandy beaches, soldiers of the U.S. 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions and the British 6th Airborne Division dropped in from the skies.  Nothing But Courage covers the 82nd Airborne's fight during the first few days of the Normandy Campaign.  

James Donovan structured Nothing But Courage in four parts.  Part I: The Plan discusses the  original mission and the last-minute change that likely saved a number of paratrooper's lives. Part I also introduces the paratroopers and locations that were key to victory.  

 

Part II: The Drop looks at how the paratrooper's experience differed depending upon what drop they were in.  Some landed in swampland, some right on top of a target and only one group landed pretty much exactly where they had planned on.  Weather, speed, and pilot skills played a major role in the scattering of the troopers.  Mind you, this scattering really confused the Germans as shown by the slowness of their reaction.

 

Part III: The Battle concentrates on the different conflicts the 82nd Airborne were conducting.  There was the fight for Sainte-Mere-Eglise, the battle for Le Manoir La Fiere, the initial fight for the Cauquigny causeway and bridge, and the attempted rescue of various isolated paratroopers. 

Part IV: The Bridge and Beyond concentrated on the charge by various groups across the Cauquigny causeway that finally pushed the Germans back and allowed the forces from Utah Beach to stream out and cut off the Germans in the Cherbourg.

 

In Nothing But Courage, James Donovan brings the reader down into the action with the judicious use of first person perspective along with narrative that ties everything together.  He also provides limited insight from German first person accounts that provides perspectives.  If the reader is interested in small unit actions, D-Day, or airborne operations, they should pick up Nothing But Courage!

Axe Murders Through the Ages!

James, Rachel McCarthy.  Whack Job: A History of Axe Murder.  New York: St. Martin's Press, 

         2025.  ISBN: 9781250276735

 

Axe murders are murders done by an axe, right?  Simple definition, one would think, but as Rachel James makes clear over the course of Whack Job, nothing is simple.  Axe murder entered the headlines in the late 1800s, but the phrase still catches attention today.  So if you are interested in examples of axe murders through the ages, read on!

 

James opens with an explanation of the hat brim rule of skull damage and uses that with Cranium 17 from La Sima de los Huesos which had holes in its skull that indicated it had likely been murdered by a hand axe 43,000 years ago.  Chapter 2 skipped ahead to Seqwnenre Tao who worked on liberating Egypt from the Hyksos invaders but met his fate under an axe blade.  Chapter 3 skips over to China with the burial of Quen Fu Hao of the Shang dynesty and her four axes and ritual deaths.  Chapter 4 discusses Croesus's threats to the city of Lampsacus, the role of tyrants in the past and an axe used to strike down a son a generation later.  Chapter 5 ships over to North America with the tale of Freydis Eriksdottir killing fellow Norsemen.  Chapter 6 narrates England's HenryVIII and the role axes played in the execution of traitors.  Chapter 7 brings in George Washington, the beginning of the French and Indian War,  and the roles played by hatchets and tomahawks in settling North America.  Chapter 8 tells the story of William Tillman, a black cook, who took back a ship captured by Confederate  pirates during the American Civil War.  Chapter 9 relates infamous tale of Lizzie Bordon who songwriters claim "gave her father forty whacks."  Chapter 10 discusses the murders of Frank Lloyd Wright's family at Taliesin near Spring Green (IL).  Chapter 11 supplies the story behind the murder of 6-year-old Linda Glucoft by the grandfather of her playmate.  Chapter 12 has a sordid tale of how Betty Gore was killed in Dallas (TX) by the mistress of her husband.  James ends the book with a final case - Mario Markworth who killed 2 men in 2019 in Kansas City (MO) with an axe.

 

If you are interested in examples of how axes have been used in killings over the centuries, Whack Job will whet your desire to find out more about these cases.  Rachel James gives you plenty of examples in Whack Job along with her sources so that you can check out the details for yourself.  So go forth and read!