A renowned expert on genocide argues that there is a real risk of violent atrocities happening in the United States
If many people were shocked by Donald Trump’s 2016 election, many more were stunned when, months later, white supremacists took to the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, chanting “Blood and Soil” and “Jews will not replace us!” Like Trump, the Charlottesville marchers were dismissed as aberrations—crazed extremists who did not represent the real US. It Can Happen Here demonstrates that, rather than being exceptional, such white power extremism and the violent atrocities linked to it are a part of American history. And, alarmingly, they remain a very real threat to the US today.
Alexander Hinton explains how murky politics, structural racism, the promotion of American exceptionalism, and a belief that the US has have achieved a color-blind society have diverted attention from the deep roots of white supremacist violence in the US’s brutal past. Drawing on his years of research and teaching on mass violence, Hinton details the warning signs of impending genocide and atrocity crimes, the tools used by ideologues to fan the flames of hate, the origins of the far-right extremist ideas of white genocide and replacement, and the shocking ways in which “us” versus “them” violence is supported by racist institutions and policies.
It Can Happen Here is an essential new assessment of the dangers of contemporary white power extremism in the United States. While revealing the threat of genocide and atrocity crimes that loom over the country, Hinton offers actions we can take to prevent it from happening, illuminating a hopeful path forward for a nation in crisis.

"[Alexander Laban] Hinton offers deep instruction for anyone seeking to better understand the bigotry that permeates American society [...] Hinton is deeply concerned with the idea of why people hate and how that hate plays out publicly [...] [W]ell-researched, readable account." - Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

"With sober analysis and in assiduous detail, Hinton explores the ways the United States is 'simmering at a low boil,' and evinces every risk indicator for widespread mass atrocity crimes...Alarming but never alarmist, Hinton provides a chilling introduction to genocide studies through a chronicle of his travails during the Trump years." - Salon.com

"Fortunately Hinton does not leave us with problems, but has a solution too: A Truth Commission on White Supremacy and Its Legacies that would extend beyond the aims of the reparations bill following the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, and open a discussion about the perpetrations of white nationalists and supremacists in a past yet unaccounted for. The understanding Hinton provides to events marking US history is objective, nuanced and noble, and teaches us readers that in seeking to define and judge phenomena and people intelligently, accurately and critically, these must necessarily be placed in the continuum of time and space." - LSE Review of Books

"For those who have been grappling with ways to bring discussions surrounding authoritarianism in the United States, white supremacist violence, and Donald Trump into college and high school classrooms, this book offers a useful template to follow." - Ethnic & Racial Studies