Subtitle: The Failed Crusade of the Christian Right
Author: Michael D'Antonio
Subject: Religious Studies
Paper ISBN 0-8135-1896-2
Pages: 242 pp.

With a new afterword

Originally published in 1989 to great acclaim, D'Antonio immersed himself in the culture of "born-again" America" for two years, travelling the country and interviewing members of fundamentalist communities. He has written a compelling book that documents not just the well-known leaders of the movement, but the lives of the followers as well.

"The most enlightening book yet on how ordinary Americans became swept up in the conservative Christian crusade. . . . D'Antonio depicts ordinary people, many of them ex-Catholics, who turned in despair and disillusionment to the safe harbor of certainty offered by Fundamentalism."--Boston Globe

"D'Antonio seeks to understand, not to condemn, and this journalistic account of his two-year immersion in born-again America offers a compelling firsthand picture of the leaders and the led."--Publishers Weekly

"A balanced and thought-provoking analysis of the rise and fall of America's Christian Right. . . . D'Antonio interviews members of Houston's Second Baptist Church, a born-again couple on Long Island, doctors at Oral Roberts University Medical Center, and even Christians who fight communism in Honduras, with the intent not to necessarily criticize but to explain what drives people . . . into an extremist adherence to tasteless "televangelism." D'Antonio weaves into his coverage . . . summaries of the scandals that have rocked the ministries of the Bakkers, Jimmy Swaggart, and other fraudulent media money grubbers, but he also does a good job of describing the political links between the Fundamentalists and the Republican party.. . . D'Antonio legitimately documents . . . the reasons why many Americans feel a void in their ever-more-modern, high-tech-oriented lives."--Martin Brady, Booklist

"D'Antonio has cut into conservative Christianity and exposed its internal structure with the objectivity of a medical examiner. And yet in the course of his autopsy, he shows remarkable compassion for the body under his knife."--The Washington Monthly

Michael D'Antonio is a journalist who has covered religion and domestic and international affairs for twelve years. He was one of a team of Newsday reporters covering the Baby Jane Doe case; Newsday was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of this case.