The Family

Description

They are The Family - fundamentalism's avant-garde, waging spiritual war in the halls of American power and around the globe. They consider themselves the 'new chosen': congressmen, generals and foreign dictators who meet in confidential cells, to pray and plan for a 'leadership led by God', to be won not by force but through 'quiet diplomacy'. Jeff Sharlet is the only journalist to have reported from inside its walls. The Family is about this other half of American fundamentalist power - not its angry masses, but its sophisticated elites. In public, they host prayer breakfasts; in private they preach a gospel of 'biblical capitalism', military might and a global American empire. Citing Hitler, Lenin and Mao as leadership models, the Family's current leader, Doug Coe, declares, "We work with power where we can, build new power where we can't." Part history, part investigative journalism, The Family is a compelling account of how fundamentalism came to be interwoven with American power and the no-holds-barred economics of globalisation.