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Book Review of Christian Nation: A Novel

Christian Nation: A Novel
thebigaym avatar reviewed on + 63 more book reviews


Frederic C. Rich retired from one of the United States's largest law firms. He also found time to write a speculative fiction (by now, nearly alternative history) novel set in our time about the takeover, via election, of the United States by Christian dominionists and reconstructionists.

The author maintains a website with more information about the book and a list of questions for discussion. You can search for the book at your local independent book store or at a library near you.

While the book is alternative history, its pre-2008 public events and persons are real. Governor Sarah Palin, R. J. Rushdoony of the Chalcedon Foundation, Michael Harris of Patrick Henry College and the Home School Legal Defense Association, Doug Coe of The Family, Senator and Presidential candidate Ted Cruz (whom President Palin nominates to the Supreme Court in the book) and others are real people who have advocated dangerous policy choices. It's worth reading the book while connected to the Internet to learn about how close some of the changes described in the book are to reality.

The book draws heavily for inspiration from Hannah Arendt's writings, Lewis Sinclair's It Can't Happen Here and Chris Hedges's American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.

The novel is not great literature, but it is worthwhile edutainment. It prompted lively discussion in the book club I attended.