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Jack Donovan

Becoming a Barbarian Paperback – March 15, 2016

by Jack Donovan (Author)

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Becoming a Barbarian won't teach you how to swing a battle axe or crush your enemies (so that you can see them driven before you and then hear the lamentation of their women).

Becoming a Barbarian is a follow-up to Donovan's cult hit, The Way of Men. Good, modern, "civilized" Western men today are expected to think like "citizens of the world" - obligated to everyone and no one. Natural, meaningful tribal connections have been substituted with synthetic, disposable consumer identities. Without a sense of who they are and what group they have a place in, modern men are becoming increasingly detached, disoriented, vulnerable, and ever more easily manipulated.

Becoming a Barbarian attacks the emasculated emptiness of life in the modern West - "The Empire of Nothing" -and shows men how to think tribally again. It reveals the weaknesses of universalistic thinking, and challenges readers to become the kind of men who could go "all-in" and devote their lives to one group of people above all others.

Becoming a Barbarian is about finding a tribe, finding a purpose, and choosing to live the kind of life that undermines the narrative of the Empire.

Print length

164 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Dissonant Hum
Publication date

March 15, 2016
Dimensions

5.2 x 0.6 x 7.8 inches
ISBN-10

0985452358
ISBN-13

978-0985452353
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Dissonant Hum; Illustrated edition (March 15, 2016)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 164 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0985452358
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0985452353
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 6.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.2 x 0.6 x 7.8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #34,177 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #32 in Men's Gender Studies

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Jack Donovan

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Jack Donovan (1974-) is an American known for his writing on masculinity.

Follow Jack on Instagram @starttheworld.

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John Donadio

Outsiders waiting for Globalisms corpse

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 15, 2022

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Nice straight forward to the point book about life in the Globalist Industrial Complex and how to come to terms with how to Master your energy in a positive way. Don't sweat the parasites buzzing in your ear, keep focus and climb the bigger mountains to achieve greatness. Wotan MIT UNS.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 7, 2022

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Very interesting read, especially for those who can’t turn a blind eye to everything that’s happening in West. Highly recommended.

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Adam Alexander

Many Great Points, A Few Cringe-worthy Ones

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 18, 2017

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It's definitely worth the read, though it uses unnecessarily flowery language at times and has a number of typos. I've held a lot of respect for Jack Donovan (and still do, make no mistake) since I read The Way of Men in June of 2016. I find his views about the decline (and our desperate need to revitalize) masculinity bold and thought-provoking.

That said, I wasn't quite as big a fan of this book as I was of The Way of Men.

I loved reading about the Empire of Nothing. I found it to be a perfect illustration of what we've become: complacent, slothful, and comfortable to a disgusting degree, a gaggle of marshmallow drones measuring each others' worth in gold and purchased trinkets rather than deeds. If we can be bothered to do any measuring in between stuffing our faces and staring at our idiot boxes, that is.

Donovan purports that the only way out of the Empire's Matrix is to reject the rules said empire has laid out for us, primarily the social customs and standards that seek to control men, and which make "good man" and "good dog" into synonymous phrases. I'm fine with that to a point, but then he talks about taking care of your own and telling the rest of the world to screw off (again, not a bad thing in itself), to the point of advocating the leeching of tax dollars in order to benefit your own people. He actually says several times that a barbarian must be willing to take care of his own even at the expense of all others, even if it means attacking and stealing from other "tribes" should the needs of your own tribe be dire enough (or even if you just want to). That, by the way, is where I draw the line.

I do see plenty of merit in the idea of a tribe as Donovan outlines; the idea of being accountable to a small group of people certainly seems far more feasible and practical than attempting to be accountable to the whole world. I can't get on board with the idea of causing harm to strangers because the spoils would benefit my tribe, though. That sounds frighteningly analogous to the types of roving bandits you see raping and plundering the helpless in post-apocalyptic fiction (the book even has a chapter about looting and plundering). Because of that, I am certain that I could never be a member of Jack's tribe.

That's fine, though, because that's the whole point of the book: Jack does not give a single, solitary crap about any negative opinions I have of him or the Wolves of Vinland. I am not his brother, as he is not mine, and were we to meet in person, I have no doubt we would be able to have a civil discussion and even a few laughs, but we would probably have irreconcilable differences that would prevent us from ever reaching the point of brotherhood. In a survival scenario, he and his tribe would kill my tribe and me if we had food and they didn't.

Ultimately, you have to decide what you will take and what you will leave from this one. As for me, I agree with about 80% of what Jack said, and as I mentioned, I still respect him and would pounce on an opportunity to meet him.

If you decide to go out and club a random dude over the head with a bat because a short book vaguely alluded to the idea of doing so, that's your prerogative.

86 people found this helpful

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Reader

Answers questions you didn’t know you had. Find Your Tribe

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 12, 2021

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Becoming a Barbarian was eye opening, but more so, it brought things into focus. It’s one of those situations where you know something is off about the world/society but can’t quite narrow it down. Jack sheds a bright light on it and writes an unapologetic book about the importance of tribalism. Tribalism is a pretty common theme when you think about it. Tribalism is commonly presented as, “birds of a feather…” or “show me your friends and I’ll show you..” But Jack goes beyond ideas and examines implications of the default program. Providing clear evidence about the dangers of aimlessly going through life, isolation, and not being held to accountable by a tribe.

I was surprised about how big of a role consumerism plays in the attempts to stifle individualism and free thought. Also surprising was the not-so-obvious-obvious dangers of Universal morality, and I can attest to them; by the time you’re finished fighting for the world, you barely have anything left for yourself.

Again, a must read, front of the line type of book. It’s an easy read that questions, ‘is the allegiance you’ve pledged, really in YOUR best interest…?’ And that’s a question you cannot un-ask yourself (rabbit-holing as we speak 🐇 🕳). Good work Jack, definitely will be reading more of your books and essays. Loved the “I Don’t Care” essay as well. We don’t realize how we’re subtly acquiesced into continuous one-sided caring. But I’ll save that for another post.🐺

2 people found this helpful

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Gile Photography of Vermont

Some good points, but heavy on a Nativism ideology that is already a problem in society

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 11, 2020

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Every time I think of Jack Donovan I waver on whether or not I would recommend him to anyone. He has great points on the decline of masculinity and how the word itself has been turned into a negative, but he often goes too far into the realm of white victimhood and borderline racism for me to really want to encourage anyone to read his books. I think he has great and valid points on the need for men to reclaim their masculinity as generation after generation of men become softer and less skilled in so many important ways, but it's when he starts to get into blaming people of other colors and nationalities, genders for this that he loses me. Men are becoming softer because the world around them and technology in general allow for it and encourage it. Men don't have to sit on their ass playing video games and doing nothing, they have every opportunity to learn how to camp, hike, be outdoorsmen, cut wood, things that create a stronger man that is more useful in practical terms, a man that lives with purpose. Jack lashes out at others with blame at times, and I think some of what he is saying is what has caused women in particular to find masculinity toxic. If you can ignore and roll your eyes at that stuff, take what you want and leave the rest, you may like this book, or you may decide that he goes too far and is not worthy of your money, I'd understand either perspective personally. There are other sites, (art of manliness for one), that you can find a healthy take on positive masculinity and other books you can read, where you wont have to endure nativist ideology that may be more suited for most, I have purchased this book and the way of men by Donovan. The Way of Men is far and away a better book, but this particular book gets only three stars due to the racial aspects and blame included that I found cringeworthy.

6 people found this helpful

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sam_acw

A Worthy Successor

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 20, 2016

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The follow up to "Way of Men" is a good successor but it doesn't quite hit the same heights.
The core is the notion of Us vs Them and how to create a meaningful and strong group and sense of who the We is. The book goes quite a way down the path into doing this, but I'm sure that there will be may readers who are either feeling to isolated to form their own Mannerbund or who were expecting a more prescriptive look.
The book also branches more into an Alt-Right worldview and Germanic pagan practices, both of which are interesting topics. However, they are both also topics that I have read similar things about elsewhere. The book is in general somewhat less original than Donovan's other works - although I think this may be a case of the people he inspired, and is inspired by, simply publishing related works.
In summary, it's a very good short book. It doesn't quite meet the very high expectations resulting from the viral success of "Way of Men" but I'm happy to have bought and read it and I'll read it again in a few months.

6 people found this helpful

Antius

Excellent book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 24, 2019

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Excellent book. Would recommend to anyone interested in politics and human nature. It is one of those books that would change the world, if enough people were aware of it.
One minor point: The publisher was somewhat negligent in their responsibility to proof read the book prior publishing. It contains a number of grammatical errors and sentences that don't make sense. There is no excuse for this - it should be the easy part of producing a book.

4 people found this helpful

Stephen Kearns

Great read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 30, 2022

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Just finished "becoming a barbarian" after reading "the way of men".

This is also a great read which is very thought provoking and can make you feel uncomfortable about how we as men live in the empire of nothing.

Men today have been brought up with lot of lies. This book explores all the aspects and show how we should deal with life.

Now... onto the 3rd. "A more complete beast"

Reviewer

Fascinating and enjoyable, though shorter than I would like.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 6, 2016

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To begin with, I'll get the negatives out of the way, of which there are few. This book seems rather short when compared to Donovans previous work. I will not belabour this point too much however, as Donovans writing style is both concise and to the point so that no words are wasted upon his pages. The brevity of this work is probably one of its strengths rather than its weaknesses, but I would certainly have liked to have some sections of the book expanded upon slightly more, specifically the following chapters: The Empire of Nothing, Becoming a Barbarian, and Caput Gerat Lupinum.

Other than its brevity, I cannot fault this book in any way. In his previous work "The Way of Men", Donovan established his writing style as being punchy, incendiary, and highly quotable. In this book he has refined that style to the point where each paragraph can almost stand alone as a succinct thought in which no words are wasted. The authors style of communication is one which I find admirable and highly enjoyable to read, as it stands very clearly apart from the work of other authors who drawl on and pack out their pages with unnecessary filling words. Donovans work, on the other hand, is Spartan in the sense that it is both Laconic and bloody.

Typing the authors name into any search engine will very quickly reveal that Donovans personal life is a very authentic representation of the philosophies that he espouses in his work. Thinkers and writers in this genre (if such a genre could be said to have existed prior to Donovan) often tend to be nothing more than thinkers and writers who rarely practice what they preach. But Donovans adherence to the code that he promotes is well documented on Facebook, Instagram, and his personal website. Although some readers will not gain any extra appreciation of his work by knowing that he does indeed practice what he preaches, I personally find it to be an important point when we approach the work of writers such as these.

To conclude, Becoming a Barbarian is an important work for anyone with an interest in such topics as Tribalism, Masculinity, Social Psychology, and even Heathenry (though this topic is used mainly as an illustration for the other points that Donovan discusses). Although I would have preferred if it were longer than its 160 pages, I cannot overly fault the author when his Laconic brevity is one of the main attractions to his work.

9 people found this helpful

Chris Healey

Start the world!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 12, 2016

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Great follow up to "The Way Of Men, which had a long lasting and profound affect on me. Again, Mr Donovan has crystallized impressions many of us have into a very clear picture of the situation we're facing at the moment and offers a practical mindset/manifesto to approach the challenges that situation presents. There are several guys writing at the moment on similar subject, but this surpasses most of them in terms of the quality of writing.

I enjoy Donovan's writing style, he make great use of imagery and metaphor to make his point, he's a engaging story teller and his use of Germanic mythology to frame some of the key ideas here was particularly effective. Some of his ideas might be considered controversial, but they're always relevant and eloquently illustrated. Overall you have an excellently written, empowering and inspirational follow up to The Way Of Men.

5 people found this helpful

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