Why is The Turner Diaries novel by Andrew MacDonald so expensive?

It’s all about the markup. Students are a captive audience. Amazon sellers know that students are desperate once they’re looking for texts on Amazon.

I’m sure I spent in the $1000’s on books for school.

It was closely associated with Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma city bombing. That cranked up demand for a relatively rare and out of print book to begin with. With no subsequent printings, and those with the book largely those sympathetic to many of the same things as McVeigh and unwilling to give it up, it becomes hard to get.

Actually I saw it on Amazon for $500 and $14.95. It looks like the first edition is expensive because of some very minor dtfferences in later editions that are not essential to your need. The story is the same but the years changed while the days of the week didn’t. For example the ftrst edition might say Wed May 6, 1979 and the later editions say Wed May 6 1981 but the text is the same. Also it seems some of the graphics changed.. Unless you are a collector of second rate racist tchotchkes, go for the $14.95

As a side point, I would have an ethical issue with supporting racist, anti-Semitic material by spending any amount of money on it. You might ask your professor if there is a library copy on reserve, or if some could be put on reserve rather than have a whole class support the author by buying his filth.

I Googled it and, as I suspected, you can find it online as PDF. try it. the PDF came near to the top of the search results.