Cults

 

Cults: Inside the World's Most Notorious Groups and Understanding People Who Joined Them is a very good overview on a variety of cults. I’ve dipped my toe into some great true crimes books these days for a combination of writing research & mere curiosity. Cults are my favorite subgenre of true crime so I thought this would be an interesting book to look at.

What I like about it is that it as a great overview of a wide variety of cults, as most of the books I’ve read are going into depth on one cult. (The exception is Amanda Montrell’s Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism, which provides an insightful view on the rhetoric groups take when they exhibit cult-like behavior)  Max Culter’s book is also a great thumbnail overview of cults I am familiar with like the Moonies and People’s Temple as well as a good introduction to cults that I haven’t heard of before picking up this book.  Cults makes for a great supplemental reference guide for people who want to study the phenomenon of cults.

However, the flip end to this being a great overview and reference guide is that the writing style is very dry. The result of this writing style may be that people who are very curious about the subject matter are most likely to read the entire book.  While much of my education on cults has been through podcasts and audiobooks, I have not listened to the podcast Cults that the book is based on. Perhaps listening to the podcast would help compliment the direction of the book. However, I did enjoy the well-researched content, the writing style just may be more suitable for an academic audience or an audience that already has an enthusiasm for the topic who wants a reference guide on their shelf.

Thank you Netgalley for my copy of this ARC.