Fascist Yoga

Reviews / Votes

'Fascist Yoga is a serious treatise on a zeitgeisty topic. To the man who may be Britain's most avant-garde writer and artist, yoga is a swindle that dupes the well-meaning middle classes. It's also a breeding ground for fascists. It isn't even particularly good for you' -- <i>Telegraph</i> 'Namaste, fascists! An original and entertaining analysis of the dubious origins of the Western middle class's favourite postural exercise' -- <i>The Times</i> 'Home wanted to do a headstand. However, after some cursory research, he realised something troubling: so did the Waffen-SS' -- <i>Observer</i> 'Western yoga existed in uncomfortably close proximity to various strands of extreme right-wing thought .. [Home's] writing about yoga is intended less as an academic study than as an attempt to educate practitioners about the influence of fascism on their culture' -- <i>New York Review of Books</i> 'Fascinating' -- <i>Prospect</i> 'Home's illuminating survey of Western yoga and its fascistic influences brings into relief the hidden side of the popular health and wellness movement ... a riveting work for readers interested in yoga and right-wing movement' -- <i>Library Journal</i> 'Immensely well researched and entertaining ... Will never look at yoga the same again.' -- Francesca Gavin, Epoch Review 'Anything Stewart Home writes, thinks, fancies, or loathes intrigues me. Reading Home is a special experience, dizzying. Home turns things upside down and shakes them up, and sometimes he recites his work standing on his head. Engaging with him, you might land on your head, also' -- Lynne Tillman, author of <i>Weird Fucks</i> and <i>Mothercare</i> 'With this scabrous broadside, Stewart Home exposes Hatha yoga's political shadow. His painstaking research reveals a hidden, decidedly inauthentic history as murky as it is intriguing. Teasing a thread from a pair of dhoti pants, soon the whole garment threatens to fall apart before our eyes' -- Matthew Ingram, author of <i>The Garden</i> and <i>Retreat</i> 'The author's desire to stand on his head led to this book, but there is nothing upside down about his exposure of the plastic gurus and spiritual sex pests to be found in these pages. Intense, funny, always original - there is nobody quite like the brilliant Stewart Home' -- John King, author of <i>The Football Factory</i> and <i>Human Punk</i> 'With an energy and style that only he could muster, Stewart Home eviscerates the two dominant manias of our era - individual self-optimisation and collective neo-fascism - and, reading their entrails, finds they share a common ancestor.' -- Tom McCarthy, author of <i>Remainder</i> and <i>The Making of Incarnation</i> 'Fascist Yoga skewers the conmen and grifters involved in Western yoga practices' -- <i>TANK</i> 'Entertaining ... may we all be flexible enough to heed its warnings' -- <i>Times Literary Supplement</i>