A yearslong, one-man anthropological expedition into the heartland of the far right.

A travelogue that tarries with furious people in forgotten places, all of them convinced that civil war of some sort is in the offing.

The Undertow feels at once urgently important and inconclusive. Perhaps we’ve realized, at long last, that sermons and parables, from Edwards to Trump, won’t save us. In fact, they just might be the death of us.

This is a grim but necessary examination of democracy’s potential assassins, leavened by Sharlet’s incredible storytelling and acute observations..

Sharlet’s description resonates more with 19th-century anthropological ethnography than it does with anything from the 21st century.

A frightening, wholly believable vision of an American cataclysm to come—possibly soon..