Synopses & Reviews
Spiritual Street Fighter. Radical Educator. Christian Entrepreneur.
The late Reverend Jerry Falwell was a controversial and divisive religious and political figure whose legacy will long outlive him. Falwell Inc. is the first close examination of how he built his conservative empire, from the inner workings of the fund-raising juggernauts behind his church, university, and conservative causes, to the explosive growth of Liberty University, founded by Falwell to mint conservative lawyers, judges, and politicans. Falwells religious ventures are now in the hands of his two very different sons. They are expanding their fathers empire beyond what he ever achieved.
Investigative reporter Dirk Smillie reveals the financial rapids Reverend Falwell and son Jerry Jr. hit when business failures piled up $100 million in debt and nearly sank his school and ministry. Smillie uncovers the extraordinary impact Falwell, in saving his spiritual enterprises, has had on Lynchburg, Virginia, and how savvy real estate investments and relentless fund-raising saved the empire. Falwell Inc. details the spreading influence his legacy continues to exert on our country.
Falwell Inc. is above all an astonishing behind-the-curtains look at a powerful but flawed man and his multimillion-dollar business, political, religious, and education enterprises, by a reporter with unprecedented access to the family. Dirk Smillie is a senior reporter at Forbes magazine, specializing in investment fraud and family business dynasties. He has written about notorious grifters in the oil, telecom, and wine worlds, and the financial ventures of Deepak Chopra, Marvin Davis, Warner LeRoy, Mexican billionaire Eugenio Lopez, and the Taittingers of France.
The late Reverend Jerry Falwell was a controversial and divisive religious and political figure whose legacy will long outlive him. Falwell Inc. is the first close examination of how he built his conservative empire, from the inner workings of the fund-raising juggernauts behind his church, university, and conservative causes, to the explosive growth of Liberty University, founded by Falwell to mint conservative lawyers, judges, and politicians. Falwells religious ventures are now in the hands of his two very different sons. They are expanding their fathers empire beyond what he ever achieved.
Investigative reporter Dirk Smillie reveals the financial rapids Reverend Falwell and son Jerry Jr. hit when business failures piled up $100 million in debt and nearly sank his school and ministry. Smillie uncovers the extraordinary impact Falwell, in saving his spiritual enterprises, has had on Lynchburg, Virginia, and how savvy real estate investments and relentless fund-raising saved the empire. Falwell Inc. details the spreading influence his legacy continues to exert on our country.
Falwell Inc. is above all an astonishing behind-the-curtains look at a powerful but flawed man and his multimillion-dollar business, political, religious, and education enterprises, by a reporter with unprecedented access to the family.
Its impossible to be neutral about Jerry Falwell, but Dirk Smillie proves it is possible to be fair. The polarizing and controversial Falwell is associated in the public mind with religion and politics, but as Smillie explains in this fascinating and insightful book, Falwell actually made his mark as a businessmanmarketing a university that was his dream, and succeeding against the odds.”Larry J. Sabato, author of A More Perfect Constitution: Ideas to Inspire a New Generation
Anyone who wants to grasp how money, business acumen, political ambition, moral certitude, and fundamentalist doctrine can combine in modern American history will find this book intriguing. Its readers are likely to divide between awe and fear at how religion can shape one mans life and the lives of a mass of his followers.”Reverend Dr. Donald W. Shriver Jr., president of the faculty and William E. Dodge Professor of Applied Christianity, Emeritus, Union Theological Seminary
A smart and wonderfully told story about a towering twentieth-century figure. It doesnt matter what you think of Jerry Falwells religious or political bent. Dirk Smillie offers a riveting, compelling tale of a man who, through hustle, talent, guile, and chutzpah, forged a religious empire out of nothing. Falwell Inc. is an unmatched tale of entrepreneurship.”Steve Fishman, contributing editor, New York magazine, and author of Karaoke Nation: Or, How I Spent a Year in Search of Glamour, Fulfillment, and a Million Dollars
For a man who forswore vices of all kinds, Reverend Jerry Falwell was a man of huge appetitesnot least for profitand Smillie's business biography examines how the son of Virginia bootleggers transformed himself from a smalltown preacher into a multimedia oracle. Armed with a siege mentality, dogged work ethic and surprising openness to the best idea, Falwell pioneered a direct-mail empire with a sophisticated electronic database and a fundamentalist interpretation of Christianity that appealed to Americans turned off by mainline Protestantism's reforms in the 1960s. Smillie's Falwell is an indomitable risk taker, constantly weathering cycles of prosperity and crushing debt as he raises up his empire, founds Liberty University with sweepstakes, starts a wildly lucrative online school, exploits his opponents (like Larry Flynt) and generally raises hell. The author's access to the Falwell estate and family perhaps explains the paucity of more stringent critical (or political) analysis as Smillie focuses primarily upon the Gospel Hour 's balance sheets. The book suffers when Falwell drops out of the book midway and it loses its controversial protagonist and most of its steam; unsurprisingly, the real heat is generated by the visionary huckster.”Publishers Weekly
"It has often been said that a glowingly positive book could be (and has been) written about the Rev. Jerry Falwell, and every bit of it would be true. But then, the same could be said of a negative book. Other writers who have taken on Falwell as a project have almost universally approached him from one of those two perspectives. Smillie somehow managed to include both facets of the man without being either judgmental or fawning. The central spine of Falwell, Inc. is, of course, financial. But it is also a good read."Darrell Laurent, The News & Advance (Lynchburg, VA)
"What, ultimately, is the impression of Falwell conveyed by Smillie's biography? There was something unseemly about Falwell's aggressive fund-raising couched in religious terms. Still, he was hated by many, so (to echo the Bible's Luke), he must have been doing something right."Graeme Voyer, Winnipeg Free Press
Synopsis
Spiritual Street Fighter. Radical Educator. Christian Entrepreneur.
The late Reverend Jerry Falwell was a controversial and divisive religious and political figure whose legacy will long outlive him. Falwell Inc. is the first close examination of how he built his conservative empire, from the inner workings of the fund-raising juggernauts behind his church, university, and conservative causes, to the explosive growth of Liberty University, founded by Falwell to mint conservative lawyers, judges, and politicans. Falwells religious ventures are now in the hands of his two very different sons. They are expanding their fathers empire beyond what he ever achieved.
Investigative reporter Dirk Smillie reveals the financial rapids Reverend Falwell and son Jerry Jr. hit when business failures piled up $100 million in debt and nearly sank his school and ministry. Smillie uncovers the extraordinary impact Falwell, in saving his spiritual enterprises, has had on Lynchburg, Virginia, and how savvy real estate investments and relentless fund-raising saved the empire. Falwell Inc. details the spreading influence his legacy continues to exert on our country.
Falwell Inc. is above all an astonishing behind-the-curtains look at a powerful but flawed man and his multimillion-dollar business, political, religious, and education enterprises, by a reporter with unprecedented access to the family.
Synopsis
A Religious, Political, Educational, and Business Empire Revealed
“Its impossible to be neutral about Jerry Falwell, but Dirk Smillie proves it is possible to be fair. The polarizing and controversial Falwell is associated in the public mind with religion and politics, but as Smillie explains in this fascinating and insightful book, Falwell actually made his mark as a businessman—marketing a university that was his dream, and succeeding against the odds.”
—Professor Larry J. Sabato, author of A More Perfect Constitution: Ideas to Inspire a New Generation
“Anyone who wants to grasp how money, business acumen, political ambition, moral certitude, and fundamentalist doctrine can combine in modern American history will find this book intriguing. Its readers are likely to divide between awe and fear at how religion can shape one mans life and the lives of a mass of his followers.”
—The Reverend Dr. Donald W. Shriver Jr., president of the faculty and William E. Dodge Professor of Applied Christianity, Emeritus, Union Theological Seminary
“A smart and wonderfully told story about a towering twentieth-century figure. It doesnt matter what you think of Jerry Falwells religious or political bent. Dirk Smillie offers a riveting, compelling tale of a man who, through hustle, talent, guile, and chutzpah, forged a religious empire out of nothing. Falwell Inc. is an unmatched tale of entrepreneurship.”
—Steve Fishman, contributing editor, New York magazine, and author of Karaoke Nation: Or, How I Spent a Year in Search of Glamour, Fulfillment, and a Million Dollars
Synopsis
A veteran reporter lifts the curtain on the ongoing religious, political, educational, and business machine of the late Reverend Jerry Falwell.
About the Author
Dirk Smillie is a senior reporter at Forbes magazine, specializing in investment fraud and family business dynasties. He has written about notorious grifters in the oil, telecom, and wine worlds, and the financial ventures of Deepak Chopra, Marvin Davis, Warner LeRoy, Mexican billionaire Eugenio Lopez, and the Taittingers of France.