Same old story

Pat Robertson is a leading evangelical or fundamentalist leader in the United States. He owns an entire TV network and once run for president. "The New World Order" is Robertson's most well known book.

The book is a real let down. Essentially, it's a confusing and badly edited rehash of warmed over conspiracy theories. We heard all this before. I stopped reading the book after Robertson's weird attack on John Ruskin, and only skimmed the rest.

All the usual scarecrows of conspiracy thinking are there: the CFR, the Trilateral Commission, the United Nations, John Dewey, the Illuminati, various New Age writers. And, of course, Baron Rotschild! Anti-Semitism, anyone?

And no, I'm not a great fan of CFR or even the baron. However, you don't need conspiracy theory to explain the establishment. An establishment, I might add, Robertson is very much a part of.

"The New World Order" also makes the bizarre claim that perestroika and glasnost in the Soviet Union is a ploy to fool the West, that Gorbachev is a covert hard liner, and that Yanayev's coup wasn't seriously intended. It was all a ruse to make Gorbachev look more palatable to gullible Westerners. Robertson even claims that the Prague spring and the Solidarity movement in Poland were part of a Soviet plot of fake reforms! He also calls for the terror bombing of Hanoi during the Vietnam War, and an attack on China during the Korean War. Doesn't he know that the Soviet Union has nuclear weapons?

In the last part of the book, the author reveals who is *really* behind the world conspiracy. Unsurprisingly, it's the Devil himself...

Robertson says very little about the coming millennium in this work. Small wonder. What is the millennium if not a "new world order" under a "one world government"? Precisely the thing Robertson claims to oppose! The postmillennial streak in Robertson's thinking also makes you wonder. Is it even a new world order under Jesus Christ?

"The New World Order" became controversial because of its flirtation with conspiracy thinking (usually a preserve of the ultra-right) and the implicit anti-Semitism in its attacks on Rotschild and other (Jewish) bankers. Since Robertson is a well known public person, the controversy is understandable. As a book goes, however, "The New World Order" is simply a boring and badly written repetition of things we heard before.

(This review is based on the version published in "The Collected Works of Pat Robertson".)