Them at 25: Jon Ronson’s adventures with extremists made him famous – and Alex Jones, too

Jon Ronson's book Them: Adventures with Extremists is turning twenty-five, and an essay in The Conversation Australia looks back at its complicated legacy. Published in April two thousand one, the book followed neo-Nazis, militias, and fringe figures who all shared a belief in a New World Order conspiracy — and it famously introduced the wider world to Alex Jones, then an obscure Texas radio host, a boost Ronson has publicly said he regrets. As the essay tells it, the book inadvertently anticipated the mainstreaming of conspiratorial thinking, with a worldview that once seemed marginal now feeling depressingly routine in the misinformation era.

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