The deepest and oldest layer of European religion is almost unknown today, and yet it governs all subsequent history. This is the Indo-European hearth cult, the subject of The Ancient Family. Here we get a picture of the most traditionalist, nationalist, patriarchal religion imaginable, of a people gathered around a sacred fire, worshipping its ancestors, jealous of its gods, and sufficient unto itself.Taken from books I-II of Fustel's momentous work The Ancient City, this volume can be read as a constitution of the primordial family structure, the father of all that came after it. The Studies in Reaction series collects works that challenge modernity, and this family structure is the perfect antithesis of, and remedy for, all that ails us today.