End of Days: Ruby Ridge, the Apocalypse, and the Unmaking of America
By Chris Jennings
Little, Brown, 384 pages, $30
Fires in the Night: The Earth Liberation Front, the FBI, and a Secret History of Eco-Sabotage
By Matthew Wolfe
Viking, 368 pages, $32
In 1992, the tiny, unincorporated village of Naples, Idaho became the ground zero of a national movement of far-right, anti-government activists and ...
The strongest version of this narrative highlights the symmetry between two radical movements—one rooted in religious apocalypticism, the other in ecological urgency—both emerging from a shared sense of systemic failure. The article effectively traces how Ruby Ridge and the ELF’s arson campaigns became foundational myths for their respective ideologies, with Ruby Ridge fueling right-wing militancy and the ELF’s suppression deepening environmentalist despair. The analysis is particularly sharp in...