TODAY WE begin one of the most important audio book series of our new century — one which we believe will become more and more relevant as the century matures: Vanessa Neubauer’s reading of Professor Robert S. Griffin’s masterful biography of Dr. William Luther Pierce, The Fame of a Dead Man’s Deeds. This audio book will be published in weekly chapter installments on The American Mercury and will be available from the Mercury as a full-length audio book when the series is completed. (ILLUSTRATION: Dr. William L. Pierce and his wife in the 1990s)

On July 23, it will have been fifteen years ago that William Pierce died at the age of 68. A physicist by training, he was known as a White nationalist (founder of the National Alliance), novelist (author of the radical revolutionary novels The Turner Diaries and Hunter), editor and writer (the founder and first editor of National Vanguard magazine and author of Who We Are, a comprehensive history of European Man), and, perhaps most importantly, founder of a new religion which he called Cosmotheism.

In his final year of life, Dr. Pierce allowed Professor Robert S. Griffin of the University of Vermont — a man who was at the time in no way associated with Dr. Pierce’s activism, views, or philosophy — to live with him for an entire month, allowing Mr. Griffin to interview him at length, experience his daily tasks running the affairs of the National Alliance and producing his weekly radio show, meeting his co-workers, and giving him unprecedented access to almost every aspect of his life, something never done by any other journalist before.

The result was Professor Griffin’s book The Fame of a Dead Man’s Deeds, which was published in 2001. The book’s title was taken from Dr. Pierce’s favorite quote, an ancient Norse proverb that runs as follows: “Cattle die and kinsmen die, and so must one die oneself. But I know one thing that never dies: the fame of a dead man’s deeds.” Fame, as I and many others called the book for short, was perhaps the first Internet-published book to “go viral” and hit the bestseller lists. It’s an extraordinary portrait of an extraordinary man. Robert Griffin is also an extraordinary man; gifted and sensitive, insightful and observant, an interviewer with the talent of asking the most pointed and germane questions — and a writer with the rare skill of capturing the true essence, personality, and even soul of his subject.

Beginning as a skeptic toward Dr. Pierce’s views, Professor Griffin said “Pierce cooperated fully and never once asked me to delete or change a thing.” By the time his sojourn had ended on the wooded, mountainous Whites-only retreat in West Virginia that Pierce called “The Land,” Griffin was able to say “I found him the most fascinating human being I’ve ever been around my life. . . . He is a very honorable man of the highest character.”

This audio book is the only one authorized by the author, and incorporates Professor Griffin’s very latest revisions, which have not yet appeared in any print edition.

How did a teacher, a professor, a research physicist like William Pierce come to conclude that there is no more important — and no more moral — thing than ensuring the survival of the European race? Why did he reject the equalizing, leveling, democratic trends that have dominated the West for a hundred years or more? Why did he ultimately decide that Christianity was an aberration and a spiritual sickness, unworthy of  being the dominant religion of the West? Well, hit the play button and you’re about to find out, as you embark upon a journey of the mind and soul, and learn what Professor Griffin learned during William Pierce’s last year on Earth. Your life will never be the same.

This week we begin with the Introduction to The Fame of a Dead Man’s Deeds.

AN UPDATED study by Bridge Ratings pegs Internet radio’s weekly audience at 60 million, with average time spent listening up as well. The study also identifies a trend that other studies have noted recently – that listening to AM/FM radio is declining, but some of that lost listening is moving to listening to AM/FM streaming stations. Since 2005, Bridge Ratings finds that time spent listening to AM/FM radio has dropped from 22 hours per week to 18 hours per week. 50 million people listen weekly to AM/FM streams.

Weekly time spent listening to Internet radio is growing; since 2005 it’s improved 10%. People now listen an average of 11 hours per week to streaming stations (both AM/FM streams and Web-only stations).

The study also finds that listening to audio (AM/FM radio, Internet radio, podcasts, etc.) on mobile devices has grown with people spending an average of 4 hours per week listening to audio content on a mobile phone.

Ever since mass use of MP3 players around 2000 and subsequent with the growth jolt with the release of Apple’s iPod device in 2001, MP3 players have penetrated the American psyche. All age groups find a reason to have one and with an expanding number of device owners, MP3 players are now in the hands of over 280 million consumers and they continue to be heavily used.

The study’s panel spent just over 11 hours a week listening to audio via their MP3 players, up 7% from the 2007 study.

Podcasting, or listening to podcasts, continues to show a small but stable following, with about 30 million people listening weekly to a podcast. Time spent listening is under an hour, and the study notes that longer podcasts have fewer listeners and recommends a “sweet spot” for podcast length of 7 to 12 minutes. Of people who are podcasting, the average user listens to 3 podcasts per week.

Adding up Bridge’s figures, we see that new digital audio media have now overtaken broadcast radio — at 23 hours per week compared to broadcasting’s 18 hours — and the trend is only accelerating. The American Mercury welcomes this trend: It reduces the power of globalist corporations as it empowers the small broadcaster and increases choices for the listener.