The reviews have come flooding in for BAM on Amazon.

Back in June, a self-published manifesto by anonymous alt-right author suddenly became a bestseller, and its influence is everywhere. BAM spent a while in the top 150 best-selling books- an exceptional level of demand for a work by a self-funded, self-publishing, and entirely anonymous author. BAM even became the second best-selling book in the "Greek history" category.

The title of the book is "Bronze Age Mindset", and its author is Bronze Aged Pervert, who boasts around 30,000 twitter followers. The initials of the book form its abbreviated title (BAM), as do the initials of its author (BAP). In this article, I attempt to analyse a book that has been discussed  by both the prestigious Francis Fukuyama-led journal "American Intellect", and the centrist magazine "New Republic" as "the strangest cultural phenomenon to happen to American politics since the 2016 Presidential Election".

Little is known about BAP himself, but his twitter bio declares him to be a "nudist bodybuilder" a "defender of freedom of speech" and  an "anti-hormone disruptor activist". He is, after all, right wing, so his status as a "defender of freedom of speech" entails his opposition to the political correctness of progressive politics as a form of censorship. His campaign against hormone-disrupting chemicals is best thought of as an instance of the crossover between far right and environmental movements (the textbook example being the Nazis).

Since 2016, the "bizarre cultural phenomenon" that gripped the right, and Trump supporters in particular, was something called Q Anon. The Q Anon controversy was caused by a set of weird and wacky conspiracy theories were posted online by an anonymous author. Q Anon proved to be a rather superficial attempt to stir up resentment amongst Trump supporters, with the anonymous poster claiming to reveal details of a deep-state plot against the president.

Against this superficiality, BAP's book, which sets out contoversial views in line with a new ideological movement called Neo-Reaction, all the while quoting Nietzche and Schopenhauer, began to be referred to by some as the "deep right". Some of his right-wing readers even declare him to possess the "finest insight into the human spirit we have seen in decades".

The titular Bronze Age is the mythological Greek age of warfare. By pursuing an ideal of "manliness", BAP seeks to enact an authoritarian style of government, with a heroic leader at its head. BAP's at once anti-egalatarian and anti-democratic doctine has led to it being labelled as neo-reactionary, with neoreaction being a part of the alt-right movement.

In October this year, there was a sudden upsurge in discussion about BAM's controversial bestseller status on websites devoted to political commentary. It all began with an extended essay by Michael Anton, a controversialist who, as an aspiring political commentator at the outset of the Trump administration, managed to land himself a high-ranking role in the White House for a time. BAP wrote up a long reply to the essay, and the ensuing debates amongst neoreactionary controversialists continue to this day.

But who is BAP?

Some reports suggest that BAP is close to White House official and former chief of staff Steve Bannon. His neoreactionary opinions differ markedly from mainstream US conservatism's privileging of limited government theory. The rise of BAP evidences the profundity of ideological change. There is a possibility that this ideology, once confined to the political fringes, may now be permeating those close to the Trump administration, or perhaps the very interior of the government itself.

It is fascinating to see how BAP, who promotes the manliness of a mythical age of war, uses his book and his twitter account to not only praise Mishima Yukio and hisTate no Kai, but also to reference the Meij-era right wing militarist organisation Genyosha.