By Kevin Seabrooke

Craven first delved into this topic with an investigative article featured in the May/June 2022 issue of Mother Jones with the headline, “Hazing, Fighting, Sexual Assaults: How Valley Forge Military Academy Devolved Into ‘Lord of the Flies.’” Last year the the Valley Forge Military Academy (7th-12th grade) announced it would close following graduation in May 2026.

Blending military history and investigative journalism, this new book examines a long-established system that, far from fading away, is going stronger than ever. Craven found “a sprawling, well-funded network featuring dozens of military schools, like Valley Forge and West Point, plus thousands of ROTC programs in public colleges and high schools that allowed the Pentagon to wield outsized power on education.”

A freelance reporter covering the military and veterans’ issues, Craven has written for The New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, and Politico magazine, among others.

God Forgives, Brothers Don’t: The Long March of Military Education and the Making of American Manhood (Jasper Craven, Atria/One Signal Publishers, New York, NY, 352 pp., May 19, 2026 $29 HC)