On My Honor The Secret History of the Boy Scouts of America

by Christensen, Kim

• ISBN13: 9781538726730
• ISBN10: 1538726734
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2025-02-11
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Summary

From a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, the shocking rise and fall of an American institution.

Since its founding in 1910, the Boy Scouts of America has been the nation’s premier youth organization, espousing self-reliance and honor. More than 100 million Americans have been Boy Scouts, from Bill Gates to Martin Luther King Jr. Today, however, Scouting faces an existential threat of its own making: more than 82,000 former Scouts have filed claims alleging they were sexually abused—seven times the number of similar allegations that rocked the Catholic Church two decades ago.  

On My Honor untangles the full story of the Boy Scouts of America, tracking its creation, growth, influence, and the massive generational trauma it has caused. Using the iconic institution to tell a story of American values over the last century, the book grapples with America’s changing understanding of what it means to “make men.”        

This riveting story of power and abuse, religion and politics, scandal and justice, is brought to life by groundbreaking research and an unforgettable cast of characters.    

Author Biography

Kim Christensen spent more than 40 years writing for newspapers, starting with the Dayton Daily News in his hometown in Ohio and capping his career as an investigative reporter at the Los Angeles Times. He has shared two Pulitzer Prizes, at the Oregonian in 2001 and at the Orange County Register in 1996, for investigations of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and of fertility fraud at University of California, Irvine. He lives in Long Beach, California, with his wife Christina, a former newspaper and magazine editor.