Amanda Montell’s deeply insightful book Cultish – The Language of Fanaticism –  is out everywhere now. It’s a fascinating look into the language of cults and the power of language as a persuasive tool. Cults have always been both intriguing and frightening in equal measure for most people – and the prevailing question remains what are their appeal for so many people to get people to enter. From the Manson cult to Heaven’s Gate, Jonestown and QAnon, Montell provides an immensely well-researched exploration of the language of cults, showing how the language can be similar with cults and MLMs.

Juicy and compelling in equal measure, Montell exposes the verbal elements that make a wide spectrum of communities “cultish,” revealing how they affect followers of groups as notorious as Heaven’s Gate, but also how they pervade our modern start-ups, Peloton leaderboards, and Instagram feeds. The book is incisive, darkly funny taking on the fanatical language applied to so many areas of modern-day society and groups. Montell’s thesis and structure is compelling and propulsive and this is one of the most readable non-fiction books we’ve read in recent years.

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