In 2002, Dr. Martha Burk, chair of the National Council of Women's Organizations, wrote to the Augusta National Golf Club, host of the Prestigious Masters tournament, expressing concern over the club's all-male membership policy and urging it to change.

The resulting firestorm surrounding the club's secret membership rester of higg-ranking corporate executives and its refusal to admit women was never really about golf. It was about much more―becoming the linchpin of a national dialogue about the role of women in society not seen since the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas debate. And, especially in executive executive suites and boardrooms, the debate is far from resolved.

Cult of Power is an in-depth account of the broader ramifications stemming from the initial controversy, written by the woman who was its center. Burk lays bare the reasons the closed gates of Augusta National symbolize all the ways women are still barred from the highest echelons of power―in government, social and religious organizations, and most important, in corporate America―and why we must change the system.

In a stunning rebuttal to the reductionist claim that Augusta National is just about golf or “private associa-tion,” Burk unveils, for first time, the extraordinary web of business, government, and philanthropic affilia-tions of Augusta National members. The list is shocking evidence of the impact and influence the members have and damning proof that there is more going on behind club gates than just a game. It really is a “ cult of power. “