Klein and Taylor do a great job about explaining the relation of some of the most godawful shit that's going on in America and around the world and apocalyptic Christianity. At the same time, they balance the awful shit going down with the people who are trying to fight it, which is needed. Highly recommended to understand our current hellscape.

I was really pleased to have a new book by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor to read, and this one lived up to my expectations!

The authors articulate a cohesive narrative around the current political moment we’re living through and offer a compelling blueprint for how to resist.

Much of this book treads very recent history, so for those of us closely attuned to geopolitics and US politics in particular, there is a lot of information that is not new. However, Klein and Taylor bring together seemingly disconnected phenomena to offer an explanation of how these trends towards fascism by different groups are ultimately deeply connected to the same deeply exclusionary, violent, and individualistic view towards the world.

At this point, it’s clear that we need to develop a compelling vision of a way to all live together in the world, one that is more persuasive than the vision that’s been presented to us by religious end-times accelerationists and tech bro oligarchs. Klein and Taylor give examples of movements and politicians who have done just this, providing inspiration at a moment when it is sorely needed. I read a lot of non-fiction that offers a single, final chapter to give possible solutions and offer a bit of hope, but this books stands out in digging deeper into the way forward.

In the end, we must save each other. Klein and Taylor offer one way we can collectively make steps towards this—it’s up to all of us to live it out.

End Times Fascism is an unsettling book about a particular strain of contemporary politics that does not simply deny catastrophe. Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor examine the overlap among Christian nationalists, tech reactionaries, ethno-nationalists, survivalists, and the billionaire escape artists who share a grim underlying assumption: the future is not something to share and repair together, but something to survive separately.

The book’s central argument is chilling. Klein and Taylor describe “end times fascism” as an ideology built around making the world more unlivable while also planning private routes of escape from the damage. For some, that escape takes the form of religious salvation. For others, it is Mars, private islands, bunkers, militarized borders, or technological fantasies that imagine a future for the chosen few. What links these movements is not a coherent policy platform so much as a shared contempt for interdependence.

I found the book especially strong in the way it connects climate collapse, authoritarian politics, anti-immigrant panic, AI fatalism, and extreme wealth. These are often treated as separate crises, but Klein and Taylor show how they can reinforce one another. If catastrophe is framed as inevitable, then cruelty can be recast as realism. If shared life is dismissed as impossible, then hoarding, exclusion, surveillance, and abandonment start to look like strategy rather than moral failure.

The book is scathing, but it is not only diagnostic. Its most important contribution may be the insistence that the opposite of end-times politics is not naive optimism. Klein and Taylor argue for a politics rooted in the living world the refusal to let the future be surrendered to people who have already written most of humanity out of it. Their counterargument is not sentimental. It is urgent.

End Times Fascism is frightening because it names something that is already visible: the desire among powerful people to benefit from collapse while protecting themselves from its consequences. But the book is also useful because it identifies the weaknesses in that worldview.

This is a necessary book about apocalypse as politics. Klein and Taylor make the case that the fight is not only against authoritarianism but against a worldview that has given up. I finished it disturbed, but also clearer about the moral stakes.

#EndTimesFascism #NaomiKlein #AstraTaylor #FarrarStrausandGiroux #NetGalley

A challenging but genuinely thought-provoking read. End Times Fascism takes the confusion of the current moment and explores the connections between politics, technology, religion, wealth and the climate crisis. It’s not always an easy book to get through, with plenty of detail and complex ideas to absorb, but it leaves you with a lot to consider.
If you’ve read Naomi Klein’s previous work, you’ll know she is renowned for her deep research and ability to identify important trends before they become impossible to ignore. This book continues that tradition, with Astra Taylor bringing her own impressive perspective as a writer, filmmaker and organiser, particularly through her work on democracy, inequality and collective action. Together, they create a powerful examination of where we are and how we got here.
What I appreciated most was that, despite the seriousness of the subject, the book doesn’t simply leave the reader feeling defeated. It also highlights the people pushing back and the possibilities for meaningful change. A timely, ambitious and important read for anyone trying to understand the world we’re living in.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for providing this advanced copy