Skipping Towards Armageddon: The Politics and Propaganda of the Left Behind Novels and the LaHaye Empire Book

This one nearly got two stars (HORRORS!). Although the premise stands solid--and thus secured the blessed third star--the composition is painfully shaky. The text just screams for an editor, and not just because of the countless typographical and spelling errors but also for Standaert's tendency to make an assertion in one sentence and then restate the assertion, with nearly identical terms, in the next. These bothersome prose couplets average every page or two. If a little more time had been spent passing over and organizing the text, the book might have contended for FOUR STAR status.

Standaert should be commended for performing the unenviable task of wading neck deep into the 12-part Left Behind series and other such premillennialist dreck, and distilling them to their essential racist, paranoid, and misanthropic elements. It reminds responsible citizens why it should bother us that some lunatic ex-Bircher and creationist goober like LaHaye had the ear of the Reagan and Bush II White Houses.