I knew this story because I lived much of it and because I've spent the past decade plus reconstructing it with other exvangelicals in various online communities. We pieced this stuff together bit by bit, but it's truly wonderful to see it all set out so clearly in one place. All of these names, events, ideas--they're so familiar to me that seeing them acknowledged by an outsider is weirdly cathartic. (Sometimes I think that James Dobson has had more of an influence on my life than any other man except my father. And that, my friends, is a disturbing thought.)

I am so glad this book exists for all the people who only had a patchy understanding of the way that evangelical masculinity-worship has molded both culture and politics for the past 50 years. It really felt like such a brief overview, but all of the essentials are here, and if you want to learn any more about any particular topic, the internet is out there and it is full of incredible work by a wide range of exvangelical writers/bloggers/journalists/feminists/etc.

Thank you, Kristin Kobes Du Mez. You are, as they say, doing the Lord's work.