The Significance of 'The Turner Diaries' - Ten Reasons why this Book Matters

The 1978 book, 'The Turner Diaries,' which was written by a former Oregon State University Physics professor named Dr. William Luther Pierce, under the pen name 'Andrew Macdonald,' is significant for a number of reasons. The reasons are as follows:

1. This book is the first of its kind with respect to its depiction of an apocalyptic race war originating in the United States of America.
2. It depicted the Jewish race as the culprits behind all economic, political, and social ills, a concept that was espoused by Adolf Hitler, the Nazi era Chancellor of Germany who sought to exterminate the Jewish people entirely. 
3. It included gun control as one of the tools used by (Jews) the ‘racial enemy’ of Americans in order to make them more vulnerable to their implementation of tyranny.
4. The book depicts a secretive underground military faction known as “The Order” as the protagonists, something that was innovative for its time. 
5. The book has a scene where The Order blows up the FBI headquarters, a concept that had never before been explored in literary fiction. 
6. The book is dystopian, being set at a time where all of the current laws of the United States have been dissolved, and a new order of laws aimed at neutralizing USA citizen’s constitutional rights have been implemented. 
7. The author of the book, Dr. William Luther Pierce, the founder of the National Alliance far-right group and its book publisher, National Vanguard books, began The Turner Diaries as a serial comic-book. 
8. The themes, concepts, and postulations made in this book were prevalent in far-right groups and organizations during the time-period that the book was written—this book put those views in the public sphere like no book or pamphlet had ever done since Adolf Hitler’s 1925 book, “Mein Kampf.”
9. The book is eugenicist in nature, pitting ‘patriotic’ whites against pro-miscegenation whites, in combat, to the brutal end, as a part of its narrative.
10. This book was the blueprint and inspiration for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing attacks that were carried out by Timothy McVeigh, an explosives enthusiast and avid reader of the book.

 

'The Turner Diaries' book cover which was also used for the audiobook. 

The aftermath of the Oklahoma City Bombing which took place on 4/19/1995. The bomber, Timothy McVeigh, was an ardent reader and philosophical adherent to the 1978 book, 'The Turner Diaries.' 

A picture of McVeigh in Waco, Texas sometime before the bombing in Oklahoma. Mcveigh held the United States federal government in contempt for its handling of the 1993 Waco Seige in which 76 members of the Branch Davidian religious sect, 25 of which were children, were killed in a shootout/fire bombing by the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms,) and the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation).

The original 1978 cover art for the book.

The audiobook CD jacket for the Turner Diaries. 

The 1990s Cover Art for the book. 

An autographed copy of 'The Turner Diaries.'

The Czech Republic's Edition