Myth of American Religious Freedom, Updated Edition

Erscheinungsjahr 2015
ISBN: 978-0-19-024721-8
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 382 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 652 g

In the battles over religion and politics in America, both liberals and conservatives often appeal to history. But in The Myth of American Religious Freedom, historian David Sehat provides an eye-opening history of religion in public life that overturns our most cherished myths. Originally, he shows, the First Amendment applied only to the federal government, which had limited authority. On the state level, a Protestant moral establishment ruled over

Catholics, Jews, Mormons, agnostics, and others. Not until 1940 did the Supreme Court extend the First Amendment to the states. As the Court began to dismantle the connections between religion and government, religious conservatives mobilized to maintain their power and began the culture wars of the last fifty

years. To trace the rise and fall of this Protestant establishment, Sehat focuses on a series of dissenters-abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, progressive pundit Walter Lippmann, and many others. Shattering myths held by both the left and the right, this book forces us to rethink some of our most deeply held political beliefs.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Sehat, David

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religionsgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religion & Politik, Religionsfreiheit

Über Autor(innen)

David Sehat is Associate Professor of History at Georgia State University. He is also the author of The Jefferson Rule: How the Founding Fathers Became Infallible and Our Politics Inflexible.