The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism At... By SarahMichigan on Sep 01, 2009 - Updated Oct 15, 2011

The full title is "The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power," but SharedReviews keeps telling me it's too many characters long.

This is not a fun summer read for the beach. It's dense, with dozens of pages of notes in the back. If you read it, I suggest keeping two bookmarks- one for the main part of the book and one for the notes so you can flip back and forth more easily. That's what I did.

So, not a fun, easy read, but it's chock full of intesting-- and at times scary-- information about how groups of fundamentalist Christian leaders have worked behind the scenes to influence public policy, both in the past and still today. Sharlet's book is heavily researched, both by researching the writing of the powerful men behind the scens but also by his personal experience of living among them. He also includes some information about the more mainstream and visible influence that fundamentalism has been having on pop culture, from chastity pledges and rings to mega-churches.

This is a must-read for anyone interested in church/state separation issues or anyone who wants to better understand how fundamentalist Christians think.