Homegrown Hate: Inside the Minds of Domestic Violent Extremists

by Anne Speckhard

Terrorism expert, Dr. Anne Speckhard, who has interviewed more than 800 terrorists, turns her attention to the deepening threat of domestic violent extremism in the U.S. Her unique ability to talk to terrorists and extremists, and draw out their very personal stories, offers readers rare insight into the human behind the hate.

Culled from more than 50 in-depth interviews with current and former members of a wide range of domestic hate groups, Speckhard peels back the curtain and reveals the extremists in our midst. The reader will be surprised to learn that hate is not the prime motivator but learned as one’s identity fuses with a hate group…

We hear from extremists, often in their own words, about motivations, influences, and often bizarre theories that inspire dozens of deadly acts of domestic violence, from Oklahoma City to January 6th. As Dr. Speckhard says, we cannot stop that which we do not understand. Woven together with her decades of experience and expert analysis, Homegrown Hate offers unique insight into the men, and women, driven to violence.

Readers will also have the unique experience of hearing directly from extremists. Homegrown Hate (print, digital and audible editions) includes video links to short interviews with more than a dozen domestic extremists.

477 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 3, 2023

About the author

Anne Speckhard, Ph.D. is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University Medical School. Dr. Speckhard has been working in the field of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) since the 1980’s and has extensive experience working in Europe, the Middle East and the former Soviet Union. She was the chair of the NATO Human Factors & Medicine Research and Technology Experts Group (HFM-140/RTG) on the Psychosocial, Cultural and Organizational Aspects of Terrorism, served as the co-chair of the NATO-Russia Human Factors & Medicine Research Task Group on Social Sciences Support to Military Personnel Engaged in Counter-Insurgency and Counter-Terrorism Operations and served on the NATO Human Factors & Medicine Research Task Group Moral Dilemmas and Military Mental Health Outcomes. She is a member of the United Nations Roster of Experts for the Terrorism Prevention Branch Office on Drugs and Crime and was previously awarded a Public Health Service Fellowship in the United States Department of Health & Human Services where she served as a Research Fellow.

She has provided expert consultation to European and Middle Eastern governments as well as the U.S. Department of Defense regarding programs for prevention and rehabilitation of individuals committed to political violence and militant jihad. In 2006-2007 she worked with the U.S. Department of Defense to design and pilot test the Detainee Rehabilitation Program in Iraq. In 2002, she interviewed hostages taken in the Moscow Dubrovka Theater about their psychological responses and observations of the suicidal terrorists and did the same in 2005 with surviving hostages from the Beslan school take-over. Since 2002, she has collected more than four hundred research interviews of family members, friends, close associates and hostages of terrorists and militant jihadi extremists in Palestine, Israel, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Morocco, Russia, Chechnya, Belarus, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Belgium and France.

Dr. Speckhard is the director of the Holocaust Survivors Oral Histories Project – Belarus, a project constructing the history of the Minsk Ghetto and Holocaust in Belarus through oral histories and archival research.

She also researched traumatic stress issues in survivors of the Chernobyl disaster and has written about stress responses to toxic disasters. Dr. Speckhard worked with American expatriates after 9-11 (at SHAPE, NATO, the U.S. Embassy to Belgium and Mission to the EU) and conducted research on acute stress responses to terrorism in this population. She also studies psychological resilience to terrorism in various populations including American civilians, military and diplomats serving in Iraq under high threat security conditions. Dr. Speckhard co-directed the NATO Advanced Research Workshops - Ideologies of Terrorism: Understanding and Predicting the Social, Psychological and Political Underpinnings of Terrorism and Understanding and Addressing the Root Causes of Radicalization among Groups with an Immigrant Heritage in Europe and served on the NATO/Russia Counter-Terrorism Advisory Group.

Dr. Speckhard consults to governments and lectures to security experts worldwide and frequently appears in the national and international media. She is the author of Talking to Terrorists: Understanding the Psycho-Social Motivations of Militant Jihadi Terrorists, Mass Hostage Takers, Suicide Bombers and “Martyrs”, Fetal Abduction: The True Story of Multiple Personalities and Murder, and Timothy Tottle’s Terrific Dream and co-author of Warrior Princess: A U.S. Navy SEALs Journey to Coming out Transgender. Website: www.AnneSpeckhard.com