The Undertow Scenes from a Slow Civil War

Jeff Sharlet

eBook - 2023

An Instant New York Times Bestseller. A National Book Critics Circle Finalist for Nonfiction One of the New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2023 One of The New Republic's Best Books of 2023 "A riveting, vividly detailed collage of political and moral derangement in America." —Joseph O'Neill, New York Times Book Review One of America's finest reporters and essayists explores the powerful currents beneath the roiled waters of a nation coming apart. An unmatched guide to the religious dimensions of American politics, Jeff Sharlet journeys into corners of our national psyche where others fear to tread. The Undertow is both inquiry and meditation, an attempt to understand how, over the last decade, reaction has morph...ed into delusion, social division into distrust, distrust into paranoia, and hatred into fantasies—sometimes realities—of violence. Across the country, men "of God" glorify materialism,... more