What do you think?
Rate this book
Blood and Progress: A Century of Left-Wing Violence in America
For years, America’s political elite and the institutions in their control have led the public to believe that domestic political violence in the United States is almost solely a rightwing phenomenon. What if they are wrong?
In only the last several years, corporate CEOs and conservative influencers have been killed. Republican justices, presidents, and their staffs have been marked for death. Small-cell terrorist organizations have executed sophisticated attacks on law enforcement. And much it has been excused, even sometimes encouraged, by an intellectual ecosystem on the left that is, even now, incubating more political violence.
In Blood and Progress, National Review’s Noah Rothman presents a careful examination of leftwing violence in the United States – and comes away with the conclusion that violence designed to advance political objectives is, in our time, more often a project of the left. Indeed, today’s wave of left-wing violence and political terrorism has come to resemble similar waves of leftwing violence.
Rothman explores individual episodes of modern political violence, identifies their causes and effects, and considers the psychological disposition that leads thugs and agitators to conclude that violence begets positive social change. He compares those attacks to those committed by the leftwing terrorists during previous waves of similar violence at the dawn of the 20th Century and in the 1960s and ‘70s, finding a number of common threads in the process.
This book shines a spotlight on the degree to which progressive activists and prominent Democrats have excused and explained away violence over the decades. It condemns the suite of unworthy historical heroes and martyrs to which progressives genuflect, so many of whom themselves engaged in violence and criminality and encouraged the same from their acolytes. It identifies a troubling trend on the American right, which increasingly clings to the same rationalizations that justify left-wing terror and bloodshed. And it proposes some potential off-ramps that could avert the national cataclysm that awaits us if these trends develop unabated.
The book’s objective is to train American political observers to recognize leftwing violence and to apply the same scrutiny and foresight to it that they reserve for violence that comes from the right. We cannot arrest the trend toward political violence in America if we are focused on only one side of the equation. Until we resolve to respond to political violence consistently and with consistent revulsion, we will get more violence.
In only the last several years, corporate CEOs and conservative influencers have been killed. Republican justices, presidents, and their staffs have been marked for death. Small-cell terrorist organizations have executed sophisticated attacks on law enforcement. And much it has been excused, even sometimes encouraged, by an intellectual ecosystem on the left that is, even now, incubating more political violence.
In Blood and Progress, National Review’s Noah Rothman presents a careful examination of leftwing violence in the United States – and comes away with the conclusion that violence designed to advance political objectives is, in our time, more often a project of the left. Indeed, today’s wave of left-wing violence and political terrorism has come to resemble similar waves of leftwing violence.
Rothman explores individual episodes of modern political violence, identifies their causes and effects, and considers the psychological disposition that leads thugs and agitators to conclude that violence begets positive social change. He compares those attacks to those committed by the leftwing terrorists during previous waves of similar violence at the dawn of the 20th Century and in the 1960s and ‘70s, finding a number of common threads in the process.
This book shines a spotlight on the degree to which progressive activists and prominent Democrats have excused and explained away violence over the decades. It condemns the suite of unworthy historical heroes and martyrs to which progressives genuflect, so many of whom themselves engaged in violence and criminality and encouraged the same from their acolytes. It identifies a troubling trend on the American right, which increasingly clings to the same rationalizations that justify left-wing terror and bloodshed. And it proposes some potential off-ramps that could avert the national cataclysm that awaits us if these trends develop unabated.
The book’s objective is to train American political observers to recognize leftwing violence and to apply the same scrutiny and foresight to it that they reserve for violence that comes from the right. We cannot arrest the trend toward political violence in America if we are focused on only one side of the equation. Until we resolve to respond to political violence consistently and with consistent revulsion, we will get more violence.
368 pages, Hardcover
Published May 19, 2026
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 4, 2026
I almost was moved to a more generous three stars by the relatively strong ending, but the writing is too obnoxious, the format too unfocused, and the body too often merely a list of left-wing transgressions. I’m extremely sympathetic to Rothman’s thesis, but it’s so artlessly developed that I can’t recommend this.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
There is an influential narrative in American public discourse that political violence is primarily or asymmetrically a phenomenon of the political far-right. It is trivial to find examples of such claims being made by academics and prominent columnists, including Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Jason Stanley, Paul Krugman, Jamelle Bouie, Jonathan Chait, and David Neiwert.
Blood and Progress is a necessary rejoinder to these deeply misleading claims, which have either been animated and sustained by methodological errors, such as the miscoding of certain acts of violence as having partisan valences that they manifestly do not, or a mixture of partisan myopia and cynicism. Noah Rothman's thesis is built primarily around the latter issue. Although he doesn't provide an empirical analysis of political violence, which he argues is a fatally subjective project, he recapitulates the overlooked history of radical left-wing violence in America over the last century. This project builds on his essay in Commentary Magazine in February 2025 "A Clockwork Blue."
"A Clockwork Blue" argued that the "post–Cold War progressive left has made a fetish out of violent expressions of political zeal." Rothman traced a timeline beginning at the end of the 20th century in Seattle, where chaotic Black Bloc tactics emerged during an "anti-free-trade protest" of the WTO to the Occupy Wall Street movement to Black Lives Matter and finally to the continuation of spiraling political violence of the Trump era, where President Trump has endured at least three serious assassination attempts, Charlie Kirk was assassinated by a socially awkward Redditor with a transgender partner, and a healthcare insurance CEO was assassinated by a schizophrenic who has since been fawned over by prominent left-wing media figures like Taylor Lorenz.
Blood and Progress includes much of the same content but goes back further into the 20th century to show a relationship between today's left-wing political violence and the left-wing violence of the past. Rothman asserts a deep continuity between the tactics used, the rationalizations by partisans and allied journalists, and the resulting permission structure, which is bolstered further by any reactionary right-wing political violence that exists even when that violence is being misinterpreted. He walks through many examples of this, including the strange misinterpretations of clear fact patterns seen in certain instances of alleged right-wing violence. This has included the framing of basic good Samaritan activity (e.g. Daniel Penny) and self-defense cases (e.g. Kyle Rittenhouse and Darren Wilson) as right-wing political violence despite juries coming to the opposite conclusions in court.
Rothman's historical narrative starts with anarchist and labor movements (i.e. Galleanists) associated attacks and proceeds to the post-New-Left terrorists and anti-American militants like the Weather Underground, Symbionese Liberation Army, Black Panthers, FALN. This includes derisive coverage of the left's hagiographic myth-making for cause célèbres like Assata Shakur, Leonard Peltier, and Mumia Abu-Jamal. He also calls attention to the many points of connection between mainstream Democrats and some of these violent left-wingers, including Barack Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers and Biden's pardon of Peltier. This is less to blame the individual politicians and more to highlight the how cynical rationalization of violence authorizes idolization and this creates malign political incentives even for well-meaning pols given the nature of democracy.
Although some of the information and claims in the book may shock, surprise, and infuriate those of the left, Rothman hews closely to the facts. The work is not particularly polemical, taking more of an exasperated and solemn tone. Rothman also thinks some of the public narrative can be corrected by evaluating political violence differently than how federal agencies and other organizations do it today. For instance, he takes umbrage with the obfuscation introduced by treating certain heterodox manifestations of left-wing violence as ideologically incoherent despite the frequent availability of ideological statements from such actors. This "salad bar" theory of ideological extremism has gained in popularity as incidences of apparent left-wing violence have seemingly increased. Many readers may remember how assiduously journalists and Democratic politicians worked to tar Charlie Kirk's killer as a Gropyer rather than what he obviously was, a left-wing individual motivated by partisan hatred of Kirk.
Although I've yet to read it, I think Blood and Progress functions as an addendum to Bryan Burrough's Days of Rage, which followed revolutionary movements of the '70s. Rothman cites the book several times, especially when covering the radicals that emerged in the wake left by the chaos of the New Left and SDS. Rothman's account is at a greater remove from primary sources and is generally less detailed from what I can tell. Rothman, of course, is covering a broader period of history so to some extent the choice makes sense; however, there are times in the work where he basically assumes some historical knowledge on the part of the reader, which I think will fall flat with most younger readers. He is also making standard but real assumption about the legitimacy of the left-right political axis, which itself is dubious but has still provided a great deal of utility in political discourse.
I think it is unfortunate that Rothman doesn't provide an empirical the central question that inspired the book: Is there really an asymmetry to right-wing and left-wing political violence? Despite covering some of the well-known methodological (e.g. how should Islamist terrorism, the type of terrorism with the largest death toll, be coded?) and philosophical (Should anarchist violence count as left-wing?) issue when coding the partisan valence of events, Rothman doesn't answer this central quick, retreating to a position that broadly condemns all political violence. I agree with this position, especially in the context of today's America, but it isn't really an attempt to be definitive about fundamental philosophical issues at play. It is just a gesture to those in the political mainstream that the fringes of both parties have an issue with violence and that both could improve at rooting it out and that maybe Republicans have slightly better hygiene on this issue because the public processing of right-wing political violence is done more explicitly.
In some ways, it is understandably difficult to treat much of what is included as connected phenomena without an on-the-ground understanding of the relationships among various left-wing non-profits, interest groups, revolutionary cadres, funders, and politicians. It is qualitatively easy to detect these relationships, but the book could be improved by a real mapping of these relationships. The most persuasive portion of the book is the analysis of the asymmetric way left-of-center violence is handled by left-liberal elites compared to its mirror image on the right. There is a lot more legitimization and accommodation of radicalism on the left with Luigi Mangione's murder of Brian Thompson as a very recent example of this problem.
Despite some of the obvious limitations and the fact the essay basis of the book makes the same case the book does (so one can just read the essay), Blood and Progress is a very useful entry in public discourse because it raises the salience of political violence on the left to an issue on par with political violence on the right. It also helpfully illustrates how historically persistent yet absolutely futile the problem of left-wing violence and agitation has been. I even wish Rothman went further a presented a critique of mass or crowd politics as altogether illiberal, but, alas, he did not go out on that limb.
Blood and Progress is a necessary rejoinder to these deeply misleading claims, which have either been animated and sustained by methodological errors, such as the miscoding of certain acts of violence as having partisan valences that they manifestly do not, or a mixture of partisan myopia and cynicism. Noah Rothman's thesis is built primarily around the latter issue. Although he doesn't provide an empirical analysis of political violence, which he argues is a fatally subjective project, he recapitulates the overlooked history of radical left-wing violence in America over the last century. This project builds on his essay in Commentary Magazine in February 2025 "A Clockwork Blue."
"A Clockwork Blue" argued that the "post–Cold War progressive left has made a fetish out of violent expressions of political zeal." Rothman traced a timeline beginning at the end of the 20th century in Seattle, where chaotic Black Bloc tactics emerged during an "anti-free-trade protest" of the WTO to the Occupy Wall Street movement to Black Lives Matter and finally to the continuation of spiraling political violence of the Trump era, where President Trump has endured at least three serious assassination attempts, Charlie Kirk was assassinated by a socially awkward Redditor with a transgender partner, and a healthcare insurance CEO was assassinated by a schizophrenic who has since been fawned over by prominent left-wing media figures like Taylor Lorenz.
Blood and Progress includes much of the same content but goes back further into the 20th century to show a relationship between today's left-wing political violence and the left-wing violence of the past. Rothman asserts a deep continuity between the tactics used, the rationalizations by partisans and allied journalists, and the resulting permission structure, which is bolstered further by any reactionary right-wing political violence that exists even when that violence is being misinterpreted. He walks through many examples of this, including the strange misinterpretations of clear fact patterns seen in certain instances of alleged right-wing violence. This has included the framing of basic good Samaritan activity (e.g. Daniel Penny) and self-defense cases (e.g. Kyle Rittenhouse and Darren Wilson) as right-wing political violence despite juries coming to the opposite conclusions in court.
Rothman's historical narrative starts with anarchist and labor movements (i.e. Galleanists) associated attacks and proceeds to the post-New-Left terrorists and anti-American militants like the Weather Underground, Symbionese Liberation Army, Black Panthers, FALN. This includes derisive coverage of the left's hagiographic myth-making for cause célèbres like Assata Shakur, Leonard Peltier, and Mumia Abu-Jamal. He also calls attention to the many points of connection between mainstream Democrats and some of these violent left-wingers, including Barack Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers and Biden's pardon of Peltier. This is less to blame the individual politicians and more to highlight the how cynical rationalization of violence authorizes idolization and this creates malign political incentives even for well-meaning pols given the nature of democracy.
Although some of the information and claims in the book may shock, surprise, and infuriate those of the left, Rothman hews closely to the facts. The work is not particularly polemical, taking more of an exasperated and solemn tone. Rothman also thinks some of the public narrative can be corrected by evaluating political violence differently than how federal agencies and other organizations do it today. For instance, he takes umbrage with the obfuscation introduced by treating certain heterodox manifestations of left-wing violence as ideologically incoherent despite the frequent availability of ideological statements from such actors. This "salad bar" theory of ideological extremism has gained in popularity as incidences of apparent left-wing violence have seemingly increased. Many readers may remember how assiduously journalists and Democratic politicians worked to tar Charlie Kirk's killer as a Gropyer rather than what he obviously was, a left-wing individual motivated by partisan hatred of Kirk.
Although I've yet to read it, I think Blood and Progress functions as an addendum to Bryan Burrough's Days of Rage, which followed revolutionary movements of the '70s. Rothman cites the book several times, especially when covering the radicals that emerged in the wake left by the chaos of the New Left and SDS. Rothman's account is at a greater remove from primary sources and is generally less detailed from what I can tell. Rothman, of course, is covering a broader period of history so to some extent the choice makes sense; however, there are times in the work where he basically assumes some historical knowledge on the part of the reader, which I think will fall flat with most younger readers. He is also making standard but real assumption about the legitimacy of the left-right political axis, which itself is dubious but has still provided a great deal of utility in political discourse.
I think it is unfortunate that Rothman doesn't provide an empirical the central question that inspired the book: Is there really an asymmetry to right-wing and left-wing political violence? Despite covering some of the well-known methodological (e.g. how should Islamist terrorism, the type of terrorism with the largest death toll, be coded?) and philosophical (Should anarchist violence count as left-wing?) issue when coding the partisan valence of events, Rothman doesn't answer this central quick, retreating to a position that broadly condemns all political violence. I agree with this position, especially in the context of today's America, but it isn't really an attempt to be definitive about fundamental philosophical issues at play. It is just a gesture to those in the political mainstream that the fringes of both parties have an issue with violence and that both could improve at rooting it out and that maybe Republicans have slightly better hygiene on this issue because the public processing of right-wing political violence is done more explicitly.
In some ways, it is understandably difficult to treat much of what is included as connected phenomena without an on-the-ground understanding of the relationships among various left-wing non-profits, interest groups, revolutionary cadres, funders, and politicians. It is qualitatively easy to detect these relationships, but the book could be improved by a real mapping of these relationships. The most persuasive portion of the book is the analysis of the asymmetric way left-of-center violence is handled by left-liberal elites compared to its mirror image on the right. There is a lot more legitimization and accommodation of radicalism on the left with Luigi Mangione's murder of Brian Thompson as a very recent example of this problem.
Despite some of the obvious limitations and the fact the essay basis of the book makes the same case the book does (so one can just read the essay), Blood and Progress is a very useful entry in public discourse because it raises the salience of political violence on the left to an issue on par with political violence on the right. It also helpfully illustrates how historically persistent yet absolutely futile the problem of left-wing violence and agitation has been. I even wish Rothman went further a presented a critique of mass or crowd politics as altogether illiberal, but, alas, he did not go out on that limb.
July 13, 2026
When you’re young and studying history, after the obligatory “why do we need to know all this old stuff?” the first question that pops into your mind is: How did these people go so wrong? What could lead to such bloodthirsty, murderous, awful, and ultimately self-destructive behavior?
In some cases, the answers are obvious. Japan had no natural resources, and its neighbors did. Conquest seemed logical. But why did the native tribes of North America slaughter each other en masse using some of the most torturous methods in history, practices so barbaric that settlers decided apartheid was the only way to live with a people they deemed “savages”? Same with the Incas and Aztecs who built beheading temples. Scores and perhaps hundreds of tribes are lost to history because their indigenous neighbors slaughtered every man, woman, and child.
Of course, the lesson in genocide taught more than any other is the rise of the Nazis. But somehow, when it comes to violent leftists blowing up buildings in California in the early 1900s, or the killing of police officers, or planting bombs in the U.S. Capital and plotting the violent overthrow of the government in the 60s and 70s, or the burning of cities and vandalizing businesses in the 2010s and 20s, or the assassinations of an innocent business executive or an evangelical who promoted free speech and debate, almost no effort is made to step back and analyze. No classes are taught or societies formed to dive deep into these impulses. No museums are built to remember the dead or display the horrors of left-wing violence. If anything, those actions are swept away as if they never happened. To the extent they are acknowledged, violence is rationalized as necessary for some greater good.
Noah Rothman’s “Blood and Progress” chronicles this murderous ideology and the societal rot that justifies it. From the bombings of the San Francisco Chronicle and the L.A. Times a century ago (the latter of which is the subject of Howard Blum’s great book “American Lightning”) to Luigi Mangioni, Tyler Robinson, and the mass psychosis (much of it engineered) that followed the deaths of Michael Brown and George Floyd, Rothman highlights the bending curve of violence and how “assassination chic” and pretzel logic like “destroying property is peaceful” lead ordinary Americans to arm up as if a Comanche war party is on the move.
The biggest difference, as Rothman points out, between the violence of the 1910s and what we’re seeing today is not the methods or the murderous mindsets – those domestic terrorists were just as driven by bloodlust as today’s Antifa – it’s the institutional acceptance. When major political, educational, and media entities cheerlead for terrorists, things race downhill. A century ago, assassins or bombers were caught, convicted, and hanged within months. We’re almost a year from Charlie Kirk’s assassination and still in the probable-cause stage. That radicalizes victims and pits sides against each other in ways that, historically, have ended in Rwanda-type civil war.
All the examples Rothman cites are worthy of books, and a few have been written about most to them. Alas, too many have been sympathetic to the bad guys. What I think Rothman misses, however, is the real root of this phenomenon. By focusing on the last century in America the reader doesn’t appreciate that this is not recent. In fact, it is the most ancient of things. The impulse to kill outside your tribe dates back to the dawn of humanity. And it is spiritual.
You might not believe in demons, or in a spiritual realm that predates history – although every generation before we became “enlightened” considered those things self-evident – but it’s impossible not to see similarities throughout time. Just in the last 250 years we’ve had the Jacobins, the Nazis, the Communists, the Taliban, Al Quada, ISIS, and countless other smaller groups that were just as vicious and relentless. Dive deeper into history and you see them everywhere, in every generation.
How? Why? If you’re honest and spend more than a day or two away from technology, the answer reveals itself. Evil exists in every man. It always has. And as the Apostle Paul rightly noted, and Rothman, unfortunately, missed, “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12).
Even with that miss, though, “Blood and Progress” is worth your time. You will learn more than you expected, and be better prepared for the battles that are almost certain to come.
In some cases, the answers are obvious. Japan had no natural resources, and its neighbors did. Conquest seemed logical. But why did the native tribes of North America slaughter each other en masse using some of the most torturous methods in history, practices so barbaric that settlers decided apartheid was the only way to live with a people they deemed “savages”? Same with the Incas and Aztecs who built beheading temples. Scores and perhaps hundreds of tribes are lost to history because their indigenous neighbors slaughtered every man, woman, and child.
Of course, the lesson in genocide taught more than any other is the rise of the Nazis. But somehow, when it comes to violent leftists blowing up buildings in California in the early 1900s, or the killing of police officers, or planting bombs in the U.S. Capital and plotting the violent overthrow of the government in the 60s and 70s, or the burning of cities and vandalizing businesses in the 2010s and 20s, or the assassinations of an innocent business executive or an evangelical who promoted free speech and debate, almost no effort is made to step back and analyze. No classes are taught or societies formed to dive deep into these impulses. No museums are built to remember the dead or display the horrors of left-wing violence. If anything, those actions are swept away as if they never happened. To the extent they are acknowledged, violence is rationalized as necessary for some greater good.
Noah Rothman’s “Blood and Progress” chronicles this murderous ideology and the societal rot that justifies it. From the bombings of the San Francisco Chronicle and the L.A. Times a century ago (the latter of which is the subject of Howard Blum’s great book “American Lightning”) to Luigi Mangioni, Tyler Robinson, and the mass psychosis (much of it engineered) that followed the deaths of Michael Brown and George Floyd, Rothman highlights the bending curve of violence and how “assassination chic” and pretzel logic like “destroying property is peaceful” lead ordinary Americans to arm up as if a Comanche war party is on the move.
The biggest difference, as Rothman points out, between the violence of the 1910s and what we’re seeing today is not the methods or the murderous mindsets – those domestic terrorists were just as driven by bloodlust as today’s Antifa – it’s the institutional acceptance. When major political, educational, and media entities cheerlead for terrorists, things race downhill. A century ago, assassins or bombers were caught, convicted, and hanged within months. We’re almost a year from Charlie Kirk’s assassination and still in the probable-cause stage. That radicalizes victims and pits sides against each other in ways that, historically, have ended in Rwanda-type civil war.
All the examples Rothman cites are worthy of books, and a few have been written about most to them. Alas, too many have been sympathetic to the bad guys. What I think Rothman misses, however, is the real root of this phenomenon. By focusing on the last century in America the reader doesn’t appreciate that this is not recent. In fact, it is the most ancient of things. The impulse to kill outside your tribe dates back to the dawn of humanity. And it is spiritual.
You might not believe in demons, or in a spiritual realm that predates history – although every generation before we became “enlightened” considered those things self-evident – but it’s impossible not to see similarities throughout time. Just in the last 250 years we’ve had the Jacobins, the Nazis, the Communists, the Taliban, Al Quada, ISIS, and countless other smaller groups that were just as vicious and relentless. Dive deeper into history and you see them everywhere, in every generation.
How? Why? If you’re honest and spend more than a day or two away from technology, the answer reveals itself. Evil exists in every man. It always has. And as the Apostle Paul rightly noted, and Rothman, unfortunately, missed, “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12).
Even with that miss, though, “Blood and Progress” is worth your time. You will learn more than you expected, and be better prepared for the battles that are almost certain to come.
June 8, 2026
I read this in conjunction with chapter 6 of Petra Goedde's The Politics of Peace which I found helpful in fully contextualizing chapters 3-5 of this book by providing a brief survey of the key theoretical frameworks that supported (and supports) the claimed legitimacy of left wing violence.
Rothman sheds light on the hypocrisy present in American discourse around political violence and who commits it. He argues persuasively that the American left is either unwilling to acknowledge their side commits violence or that if they do commit violence it is only defensive violence and is therefore justified. He used the discourse around the murder of Charlie Kirk as one example. Jimmy Kimmel said on air that "[the] MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them" and former Bernie Sanders press secretary Biahna Joy Gray saying that Kirk was capable of “extreme violence and bigotry against me” and anyone else who is “black or trans or an immigrant or Arab or a woman.” Preemption is, therefore, justified."
Rothman chronicles the major movements and violent events perpetrated by the radical left starting at the turn of the twentieth century as well as their ideological forefathers in French Revolution and organized labor. He dives into the myth making around the leftist terrorists such as Mumia Abu-Jamal, Assata Shakur, Bill Ayers, Leonard Peltier, and others and how the myths managed to transmute murderers into romantic revolutionary heroes.
Lest anyone should fault Mr. Rothman for ignoring political violence from the political right, he dedicates a chapter on right wing violence over the last decade. Rothman shows how the violent right has adopted and adapted the tactics and rhetorical frameworks of the left in pursuit of their own political ends. Rothman does not shy away from discussing President Donald Trump's encouragement and approval of political violence to his benefit throughout the course of his political career.
Rothman does not merely provide a description of political violence in America, but also offers some prescriptions as well. Among those are an apolitical tone from law enforcement, an allergy to the idea that political violence is the result of material hardship, and responsibility from the elite class who have tended to catastrophize for gain.
The value in this book is it is sober map of the history of leftist political violence in America and how it shapes the contours of American politics in 2026.
Rothman sheds light on the hypocrisy present in American discourse around political violence and who commits it. He argues persuasively that the American left is either unwilling to acknowledge their side commits violence or that if they do commit violence it is only defensive violence and is therefore justified. He used the discourse around the murder of Charlie Kirk as one example. Jimmy Kimmel said on air that "[the] MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them" and former Bernie Sanders press secretary Biahna Joy Gray saying that Kirk was capable of “extreme violence and bigotry against me” and anyone else who is “black or trans or an immigrant or Arab or a woman.” Preemption is, therefore, justified."
Rothman chronicles the major movements and violent events perpetrated by the radical left starting at the turn of the twentieth century as well as their ideological forefathers in French Revolution and organized labor. He dives into the myth making around the leftist terrorists such as Mumia Abu-Jamal, Assata Shakur, Bill Ayers, Leonard Peltier, and others and how the myths managed to transmute murderers into romantic revolutionary heroes.
Lest anyone should fault Mr. Rothman for ignoring political violence from the political right, he dedicates a chapter on right wing violence over the last decade. Rothman shows how the violent right has adopted and adapted the tactics and rhetorical frameworks of the left in pursuit of their own political ends. Rothman does not shy away from discussing President Donald Trump's encouragement and approval of political violence to his benefit throughout the course of his political career.
Rothman does not merely provide a description of political violence in America, but also offers some prescriptions as well. Among those are an apolitical tone from law enforcement, an allergy to the idea that political violence is the result of material hardship, and responsibility from the elite class who have tended to catastrophize for gain.
The value in this book is it is sober map of the history of leftist political violence in America and how it shapes the contours of American politics in 2026.
May 20, 2026
Blood and Progress is one of those rare books that feels like it wrote itself as events contuie to unfold in the world today, making its message impossible to ignore. Rothman does an incredible job connecting historical left-wing political violence to the chaos and extremism we continue to see in the world. From past revolutionary movements to current events and figures like Charlie Kirk, the parallels can’t be ignored.
What makes this book so compelling is that it doesn’t just rehash history it explains how patterns repeat themselves, how violence gets rationalized, and how political culture can slowly normalize extremism. Rothman’s writing is sharp, well-researched, and incredibly readable.
Whether you agree with every conclusion or not, this is the kind of book that forces you to think critically and look at current events through a much broader historical lens. It could not be more timely. Blood and Progress is a great read, an important read, and one of those books that genuinely leaves you smarter after finishing it.
What makes this book so compelling is that it doesn’t just rehash history it explains how patterns repeat themselves, how violence gets rationalized, and how political culture can slowly normalize extremism. Rothman’s writing is sharp, well-researched, and incredibly readable.
Whether you agree with every conclusion or not, this is the kind of book that forces you to think critically and look at current events through a much broader historical lens. It could not be more timely. Blood and Progress is a great read, an important read, and one of those books that genuinely leaves you smarter after finishing it.
June 24, 2026
A journey through the violent Left.
An interesting, balanced review of America's left and their romantic attachment to revolutionary violence. This book was an enjoyable, quick read.
An interesting, balanced review of America's left and their romantic attachment to revolutionary violence. This book was an enjoyable, quick read.
July 13, 2026
Worth reading, but much of the book covered events from the past 25 years that I was already familiar with. More interesting to me were the early chapters that dealt with forgotten episodes of violence in the early 20th Century and the 1970s.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
The author focuses a lot on violence from left wing radicals in America towards more conservative media figures, but it does not give the weight it should to the antisemitism directed toward Jews by leftists who identify with the so-called Palestinians. Many Jew Americans have joined the Republican Party because of attacks on Israeli and the hostages in Gaza, as well as the violent attacks on Jews worldwide including the shootings in Australia.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews