Recommended by  Judith Albino

Timothy Egan, who writes history as engagingly as if it were fiction, tackled an under-reported and shameful era of our country in this account of the second wave of the Ku Klux Klan and the man who was its leader. How was David C Stephenson able to renew a nineteenth century racist movement in 1920’s Indiana, represent it as “true American” values, and use it to control the lives of millions, all while building enormous personal wealth? Extortion of business owners, bribing public officials, violence, rape, and murder were ignored while people flocked to parades featuring hooded Klansmen, Ladies of the Invisible Empire and even Ku Klux Kiddies. With his influence spreading across the country, the new Grand Dragon was heralded as the next president. This account of a “sadistic, grifting, vengeful, womanizing” psychopath (?) not only fed my attempts to understand our world today, but also to come to terms with psychological concepts of human behavior, and the real meaning of good and evil. Must I question my belief in the basic goodness of human beings and my rejection of the existence of pure evil?