The first in-depth history of the culture war fight that shaped the politics of the new millenium.

The series of events between 2014 and 2015 known as “Gamergate” remains widely misunderstood and deeply polarizing. Like the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand a century earlier, this obscure online dispute over ethics in video game journalism quickly erupted into a broader conflagration that would define the cultural battles of the 21st century. Allegations that a critic had traded her sexual favors for positive reviews put into motion a frenzied war of words and institutional power between video-game hobbyists (mostly young men) and radical progressive ideologues who sought to revolutionize the culture from within. Beyond gaming, Gamergate revealed the fragility of the liberal consensus, showing how identity politics and once-obscure academic theories had escaped the Petri dish of humanities departments and taken hold in the opinion-shaping institutions of society at large.

This definitive account of the Gamergate scandal, as told by Allum Bokhari, a journalist who chronicled the episode while it was happening, provides an insider perspective on the drama, the key players, the timeline of events, and its ongoing significance for American public life.