BITTER HARVEST: The Birth of Paramilitary Terrorism...

BITTER HARVEST: The Birth of Paramilitary Terrorism in the Heartland by James Corcoran (Penguin: $10.95; 272 pp., illustrated). Originally published in 1990, Corcoran’s terse study chronicles the violent career of Gordon Kahl, an early adherent of the anti-government militia movement. Although Corcoran is careful to place Kahl’s sinister ideology in the context of the discontent and impotence many small Midwestern farmers experienced during the agricultural crisis of the ‘80s, he never portrays his subject as anything but the perverse fanatic that he was. The idea that an otherwise rational man could espouse a virulent amalgam of Populism, anti-Semitism, racism and Christian millennialism seems doubly alarming after the Kansas City bombing. In a new introduction, Corcoran warns that in recent years, “comments by mainstream leaders--elected officials, radio talk-show hosts, and officials of special interest groups--have competed in viciousness, mean-spiritedness, and hatefulness with anything either said or written by members of the extremist movement . . . they have created a climate and culture of hate . . . in which invective and irresponsible rhetoric is routinely used to demonize an opponent, legitimize insensitive stereotypes, and promote prejudice.”