On this episode, Benjamin Gorman gabs with Talia Lavin, author of Culture Warlords: My Journey Into the Dark Web of White Supremacy, about the rise of Christo-Fascism, Napoleon Bonaparte, Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn, and whether playing unwinnable video games is a metaphor for fighting for social justice (okay, it was a pretty weak justification on Benjamin’s part).

Today’s secret word is: Poilu

Find Talia here:

Subscribe to Talia’s newsletter, The Sword and the Sandwich

https://theswordandthesandwich.substack.com/

Twitter @mobydickenergy

Bluesky: swordsjew

Get your copy of Culture Warlords: My Journey into the Dark Web of White Supremacy here:

https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/talia-lavin/culture-warlords/9781549127830/?lens=hachette-books

You can still support our Writing Against the Darkness team and help us fight Alzheimer’s Disease by donating here

https://act.alz.org/site/TR?fr_id=16164&pg=team&team_id=784887

Mentioned on the show:

The Poisoner’s Cabinet

https://shows.acast.com/thepoisonerscabinet

On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder

https://timothysnyder.org/books

Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution by RF Kuang

https://www.amazon.com/Babel-Necessity-Violence-Translators-Revolution/dp/0063021420

A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918 by G. J. Meyer

https://www.amazon.com/World-Undone-Story-Great-1914/dp/0553382403

Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914-1918 by Louis Barthas (Author), Edward M. Strauss (Translator)

https://www.amazon.com/Poilu-Notebooks-Corporal-Barrelmaker-1914-1918/dp/0300212488

His Majesty's Dragon: Book One of the Temeraire by Naomi Novic

https://www.amazon.com/His-Majestys-Dragon-Book-Temeraire/dp/0593359542

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novic

https://www.amazon.com/Spinning-Silver-Novel-Naomi-Novik/dp/0399180990

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

https://www.amazon.com/Uprooted-Novel-Naomi-Novik/dp/0804179050

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo