No family in the history of American sports has ascended to the storybook level of greatness and royal succession quite like the Mannings. Although the facade has occasionally cracked-murmurs of locker-room scandal, flashes of fraternal jealousy - this talented trio of quarterbacks is enshrined in American culture, epitomizing once-proud but dying nostrums of Southern Christian manhood.

With remarkable nuance, "outstanding biographer" (Dallas Morning News) Mark Ribowsky traces their roots from red-clay Mississippi. From patriarch Archie's heyday at Ole Miss, with its complicated history, to the rise of his Super Bowl champion sons Peyton and Eli, a complex new cultural reality emerges. Drawing on dozens of new interviews, Ribowsky tells us that the path to football immortality has not always been smooth, nor completely glorious. The result is a distinctly American saga of a flawed lineage that forever changed the game.