Falwell Inc.

Inside a Religious, Political, Educational, and Business Empire

Dirk Smillie

St. Martin's Press

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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. Falwell’s religious ventures are now in the hands of his two very different sons. They are expanding their father’s 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.

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Introduction

The common denominator of all highly successful people is a narrative of trouble.

—JERRY FALWELL

On the last morning of Jerry Falwell’s life, he awoke at 6:20 A.M., slowly rolled out of bed, showered, shaved, dressed, and sat down in his study to bang out a storm of e-mail. It was Tuesday, May 15, just four days before the 2007 graduation ceremonies at Liberty University, the school he had founded thirty-six years earlier. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich would be coming to Liberty that Saturday to deliver the commencement address to 3,598 graduating

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About the Author

Dirk Smillie

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.

Dirk Smillie

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Falwell Inc.
Inside a Religious, Political, Educational, and Business Empire
Dirk Smillie

Hardcover

Hardcover
St. Martin's Press
July 2008
Hardcover
ISBN: 9780312376291
ISBN10: 0312376294
5 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches, 256 pages
$25.95
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