American History volume 2 gives a wide overview of America's history from the end of the Civil War era, to the political and cultural struggles of contemporary times. Thomas S. Kidd employs lessons learned from his own scholarly expertise and history classes to weave together a compelling narrative of the defeats and triumphs that have defined the American national experience. Unlike many textbooks of modern American history, religion and faith remain central aspects of the book's coverage, through present-day America. It gives detailed treatment of episodes such as America's military conflicts, the Civil Rights movement, and the culture wars of the past half-century. Professor Kidd also considers the development of America's obsession with entertainment, from the rise of the first movies, to the social media age. American History v olume 2 will help students wrestle with the political and cultural changes that have dramatically transformed contemporary American life

In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, many of America's Christian evangelicals have denounced Islam as a "demonic" and inherently violent religion, provoking frustration among other Christian conservatives who wish to present a more appealing message to the world's Muslims. Yet as Thomas Kidd reveals in this sobering book, the conflicted views expressed by today's evangelicals have deep roots in American history.

Tracing Islam's role in the popular imagination of American Christians from the colonial period to today, Kidd demonstrates that Protestant evangelicals have viewed Islam as a global threat--while also actively seeking to convert Muslims to the Christian faith--since the nation's founding. He shows how accounts of "Mahometan" despotism and lurid stories of European enslavement by Barbary pirates fueled early evangelicals' fears concerning Islam, and describes the growing conservatism of American missions to Muslim lands up through the post-World War II era. Kidd exposes American Christians' anxieties about an internal Islamic threat from groups like the Nation of Islam in the 1960s and America's immigrant Muslim population today, and he demonstrates why Islam has become central to evangelical "end-times" narratives. Pointing to many evangelicals' unwillingness to acknowledge Islam's theological commonalities with Christianity and their continued portrayal of Islam as an "evil" and false religion, Kidd explains why Christians themselves are ironically to blame for the failure of evangelism in the Muslim world.

"American Christians and Islam" is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the causes of the mounting tensions between Christians and Muslims today.

All Americans, liberal or conservative, religious or not, can agree that religious freedom, anchored in conscience rights, is foundational to the U.S. democratic experiment. But what freedom of conscience means, what its scope and limits are, according to the Constitution - these are matters for heated debate. At a moment when such questions loom ever larger in the nation's contentious politics and fraught policy-making process, this timely book offers invaluable historical, empirical, philosophical, and analytical insight into the American constitutional heritage of religious liberty. As the contributors to this interdisciplinary volume attest, understanding religious freedom demands taking multiple perspectives. The historians guide us through the legacy of religious freedom, from the nation's founding and the rise of public education, through the waves of immigration that added successive layers of diversity to American society. The social scientists discuss the swift, striking effects of judicial decision making and the battles over free exercise in a complex, bureaucratic society. Advocates remind us of the tensions abiding in schools and other familiar institutions, and of the major role minorities play in shaping free exercise under our constitutional regime. And the jurists emphasize that this is a messy area of constitutional law. Their work brings out the conflicts inherent in interpreting the First Amendment - tensions between free exercise and disestablishment, between the legislative and judicial branches of government, and along the complex and ever-shifting boundaries of religion, state, and society. What emerges most clearly from these essays is how central religious liberty is to America's civic fabric - and how, under increasing pressure from both religious and secular forces, this First Amendment freedom demands our full attention and understanding.

A revelatory new biography of Thomas Jefferson, focusing on his ethical and spiritual life "Kidd's biography may well be the best treatment of Jefferson's religious and moral life available, and certainly it is among the few to take those two subjects seriously while carefully avoiding hagiography or anachronism. It deserves a wide readership."-Miles Smith, National Review "Set aside everything you think you know about Thomas Jefferson and religion, and read this book. This is the definitive account. It is well written, well researched, judicious, and entirely convincing."-Timothy Larsen, Wheaton College Thomas Jefferson was arguably the most brilliant and inspiring political writer in American history. But the ethical realities of his personal life and political career did not live up to his soaring rhetoric. Indeed, three tensions defined Jefferson's moral life: democracy versus slavery, republican virtue versus dissolute consumption, and veneration for Jesus versus skepticism about Christianity. In this book Thomas S. Kidd tells the story of Jefferson's ethical life through the lens of these tensions, including an unapologetic focus on the issue where Jefferson's idealistic philosophy and lived reality clashed most obviously: his sexual relationship with his enslaved woman Sally Hemings. In doing so, he offers a unique perspective on one of American history's most studied figures.

The Puritans called Baptists "the troublers of churches in all places" and hounded them out of Massachusetts Bay Colony. Four hundred years later, Baptists are the second-largest religious group in America, and their influence matches their numbers. They have built strong institutions, from megachurches to publishing houses to charities to mission organizations, and have firmly established themselves in the mainstream of American culture. Yet the historical legacy of outsider status lingers, and the inherently fractured nature of their faith makes Baptists ever wary of threats from within as well as without. In Baptists in America, Thomas S. Kidd and Barry Hankins explore the long-running tensions between church, state, and culture that Baptists have shaped and navigated. Despite the moment of unity that their early persecution provided, their history has been marked by internal battles and schisms that were microcosms of national events, from the conflict over slavery that divided North from South to the conservative revolution of the 1970s and 80s. Baptists have made an indelible impact on American religious and cultural history, from their early insistence that America should have no established church to their place in the modern-day culture wars, where they frequently advocate greater religious involvement in politics. Yet the more mainstream they have become, the more they have been pressured to conform to the mainstream, a paradox that defines-and is essential to understanding-the Baptist experience in America. Kidd and Hankins, both practicing Baptists, weave the threads of Baptist history alongside those of American history. Baptists in America is a remarkable story of how one religious denomination was transformed from persecuted minority into a leading actor on the national stage, with profound implications for American society and culture.

In the post-9/11 world, it is not difficult to see how important religion remains in America and around the globe. An older generation of scholars expected that America and the rest of the Western world was headed inexorably toward secularization and the end of religion. America is undoubtedly secular in many ways, and our constitutional order requires a clear distinction between faith communities and government. Yet from the colonial era to the present, American men and women have been, and have remained, a pervasively religious people. In America's Religious History, leading historian Thomas S. Kidd traces the theological and ethnic diversity and enduring strength of American religion, with special attention to Christianity and evangelical faith. Interweaving religious history and key events from the larger narrative of American history, the book considers how faith commitments and categories have shaped the nation. Written with the student in mind, America's Religious History offers an up-to-date, narrative introduction useful for undergraduate and graduate-level courses on American religion. General readers wanting to better understand the religious background of American life and politics will also enjoy its engaging and insightful overview.

Winner of Christianity Today's 2016 Book Award for History/Biography: an engaging, balanced, and penetrating narrative biography of the charismatic eighteenth-century American evangelist George Whitefield "The most authoritative yet readable book on the eighteenth century's greatest preacher."-Marvin Olasky, World Magazine "Kidd's theologically sympathetic approach gives the book a depth that a more detached treatment might not: He misses none of the biblical allusions that peppered Whitefield's utterances, and he is an excellent guide through the tangled doctrinal controversies that dogged Whitefield's career."-Barton Swaim, Wall Street Journal In the years prior to the American Revolution, George Whitefield was the most famous man in the colonies. Thomas Kidd's fascinating biography explores the extraordinary career of the most influential figure in the first generation of Anglo-American evangelical Christianity, examining his sometimes troubling stands on the pressing issues of the day, both secular and spiritual, and his relationships with such famous contemporaries as Benjamin Franklin, Jonathan Edwards, and John Wesley. Based on the author's comprehensive studies of Whitefield's original sermons, journals, and letters, this excellent history chronicles the phenomenal rise of the trailblazer of the Great Awakening. Whitefield's leadership role among the new evangelicals of the eighteenth century and his many religious disputes are meticulously covered, as are his major legacies and the permanent marks he left on evangelical Christian faith. It is arguably the most balanced biography to date of a controversial religious leader who, though relatively unknown three hundred years after his birth, was a true giant in his day and remains an important figure in America's history.

No living scholar has shaped the study of American religious history more profoundly than George M. Marsden. His work spans U.S. intellectual, cultural, and religious history from the seventeenth through the twenty-first centuries. This collection of essays uses the career of George M. Marsden and the remarkable breadth of his scholarship to measure current trends in the historical study of American evangelical Protestantism and to encourage fresh scholarly investigation of this faith tradition as it has developed between the eighteenth century and the present. Moving through five sections, each centered around one of Marsden's major books and the time period it represents, the volume explores different methodologies and approaches to the history of evangelicalism and American religion.
Besides assessing Marsden's illustrious works on their own terms, this collection's contributors isolate several key themes as deserving of fresh, rigorous, and extensive examination. Through their close investigation of these particular themes, they expand the range of characters and communities, issues and ideas, and contingencies that can and should be accounted for in our historical texts. Marsden's timeless scholarship thus serves as a launchpad for new directions in our rendering of the American religious past.
""American Evangelicalism" is a grandly conceived and skillfully executed "festschrift" in honor of George M. Marsden. The affection and regard for Marsden from his colleagues and former students shine through one essay after another. As a major historian of American evangelicalism whose temporal range spans from the colonial era well into the twenty-first century, Marsden very much deserves this impressive tribute." --Leigh Eric Schmidt, Edward C. Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities, Washington University in St. Louis

During the early eighteenth century, colonial New England witnessed the end of Puritanism and the emergence of a revivalist religious movement that culminated in the evangelical awakenings of the 1740s. This engrossing book explores the religious history of New England during the period and offers new reasons for this change in cultural identity. After England's Glorious Revolution, says Thomas Kidd, New Englanders abandoned their previous hostility toward Britain, viewing it as the chosen leader in the Protestant fight against world Catholicism. They also imagined themselves part of an international Protestant community and replaced their Puritan beliefs with a revival-centered pan-Protestantism. Kidd discusses the rise of "the Protestant interest" and provides a compelling argument about the origins of both eighteenth-century revivalism and the global evangelical movement.

Baptists are the second-largest religious group in the United States, trailing only Catholics. They represent nearly 20% of the US population and a third of all American Protestants, and have attained a certain level of notoriety for their penchant for controversy. From their defiance of established churches in the Colonial period, to pastor Robert Jeffress calling Mitt Romney's Mormonism a "cult" during the Republican primaries of 2012 they have consistently been at the forefront of religion's collision with culture and society. This book will offer a history of Baptists in America from the Colonial period to the present day, from their fight for the separation of church and state to their role as some of the chief combatants in today's culture wars. Their history has been marked by internal battles and schisms that were microcosms of national events, from the conflict over slavery that divided North from South to the ascendancy of conservatives within the Southern Baptist Convention, which mirrored developments within the Republican Party. The book's primary theme will be Baptists' struggles between seeing themselves as "insiders" or "outsiders" in American culture. The persecuted Baptists of the colonial period became one of the dominant churches in nineteenth-century America. Today, they are the primary spokespersons for evangelical America. Yet, even as they appear comfortable in this role, Baptists have never been sure if America represented a Babylon of spiritual exile, or a peaceful Zion. This book will offer a lively and accessible history of one of America's most important religious groups.

No living scholar has shaped the study of American religious history more profoundly than George M. Marsden. His work spans U.S. intellectual, cultural, and religious history from the seventeenth through the twenty-first centuries. This collection of essays uses the career of George M. Marsden and the remarkable breadth of his scholarship to measure current trends in the historical study of American evangelical Protestantism and to encourage fresh scholarly investigation of this faith tradition as it has developed between the eighteenth century and the present. Moving through five sections, each centered around one of Marsden's major books and the time period it represents, the volume explores different methodologies and approaches to the history of evangelicalism and American religion. Besides assessing Marsden's illustrious works on their own terms, this collection's contributors isolate several key themes as deserving of fresh, rigorous, and extensive examination. Through their close investigation of these particular themes, they expand the range of characters and communities, issues and ideas, and contingencies that can and should be accounted for in our historical texts. Marsden's timeless scholarship thus serves as a launchpad for new directions in our rendering of the American religious past.