As if Amazon.com's print-on-demand program wasn't unpopular enough these days, Commentary blogger Yuval Levin reports on BookSurge's disturbing choice of wares to hawk. Apparently, he received a promotional email, which had the usual template signature of public relations manager Amanda Sullivan Wilson and the usual notice about being an Amazon subsidiary, for a book called Persecution, Privilege & Power, about "the role that Zionism plays in shaping U.S. policies abroad as well as cultural transformations at home."

And, fine, you say, plenty of books have been dealing with this subject matter recently, and stirring up controversy along the way, but that's what a vigorous public discourse is all about. Yes, well—most of those books don't bandy about phrases like "Zionist machinations as well as the entrenched taboos and covert alliances that sustain them" and "organized Jewry," both of which appeared in this email. Contributors to the anthology include Kevin MacDonald, a professor whose main theory, as described on Wikipedia, is that "Judaism is a group evolutionary strategy to enhance the ability of Jews to out-compete non-Jews for resources," and Joe Sobran, who was dismissed from the National Review because of his views on "Jewish-Zionist" influences on American politics, and who would later characterize the 9/11 attacks as a response to policies crafted by those interests. Bernard-Henri Lévy would have a field day, it sounds like.

If this sort of thing interests you, Amazon's support of BookSurge ensures that you can get it with one-day delivery, whereas if editor Mark Green (not, one assumes, the former New York mayoral candidate) had gone with some other print-on-demand company, Amazon wouldn't sell you this book directly at all.