Here, for the first time, Stern offers a definitive history and comprehensive exploration of the American militia movement. He demonstrates that this paramilitary movement has deep and barbarous roots. Exposing the movement's political ancestors - the Klan, the Minutemen, the American Nazi Party, Christian Identity, the Posse Comitatus, and The Order - Stern shows how these right-wing extremists connect to today's domestic terrorists.

A Force upon the Plain explains how this country has gotten to a point where thousands of well-armed men and women have become so certain that their country is under siege and their leaders cannot be trusted that they believe the only possible defense lies with them and their guns. It uncovers the ways in which these men and women have used newsletters, the Internet, short-wave radio and political campaigns to spread their message of hate across the country and even into the halls of Congress.

Militia members have shot police officers, threatened government workers, been arrested in armed confrontations, calmly explained how it might be necessary to kill government officials, and still feel comfortable enough to run newspaper ads for their meetings and lobby their legislators.