Inside Out: A Memoir of Entering and Breaking Out of a Minneapolis Political Cult - Paperback

by Alexandra Stein (Author)

A gripping literary memoir of life inside an extremist political group.Invaluable . . . honest . . . intelligent. --Doris Lessing"If you want to know how sensible and educated people can be hooked into a cult run by a psychopath, this honest and intelligent book will tell you. It will be invaluable in the effort to expose the mechanisms of cults and sects."Doris Lessing'The most gripping inside account of a cult that I have ever read. It is also a literary masterpiece, and a classic of autobiographical writing. By the end, readers will care passionately about the author, her family and the many characters that illuminate these pages. Dr. Dennis Tourish, Department of Communication and Management Aberdeen University, ScotlandInside Out tells a riveting story of life inside a fringe group of political activists, not unlike the SLA and others that emerged from the U.S. Left in the 1970s. With passion, insight, and wit, Stein unravels the mystery of this secretive cult called the O. - a tale made all the more real because of the author's frankness about her own 10-year involvement with the group. The processes of induction and indoctrination, and the increasing devotion of O. members, who over time are exploited by a corrupt leader, come alive in absorbing detail. This book makes a significant contribution to the study of the social psychology of closed groups, as well as to our understanding of fanaticism and idealism gone astray - all subjects of compelling importance in this post-9/11 world.Janja Lalich, Ph.D. Department of SociologyCalifornia State University, Chico

Author Biography

Alexandra Stein is a social psychologist who lectures and writes on cults and totalitarianism. Formerly, she was an associate lecturer at Birkbeck, University of London, UK and has also taught at the University of Minnesota, US and the University of Westminster, UK. As a young woman she was a member of a political cult, an experience she describes in this, her first book, Inside Out. Her latest book is Terror, Love and Brainwashing: Attachment in cults and totalitarian systems, Routledge, 2016. See www.alexandrastein.com for more information.