NRA

For the first time, the definitive account of America's most powerful, most secretive, and most controversial nonprofit, and how far it has strayed from its origins.The National Rifle Association is unique in American life. None is as controversial. Few other civic organizations are as old or as large.

gun policy differs so extremely -- some would say so tragically -- from that of every other developed nation. It is largely due to the NRA that the U.S. But, as Frank Smyth shows, the NRA has evolved from an organization concerned above all with marksmanship -- and which supported most government efforts around gun control for a hundred years -- to one that resists all attempts to restrict guns in any way.

At the same time, the organization has also buried its own remarkable history. Here is that story, from the NRA's surprising roots in post-Civil War New York City to