History of religion Books

Book SynopsisAugustine: From Rhetor to Theologian arose from a conference held at Trinity College, Toronto, to celebrate the 1600th anniversary of the conversion to Catholic Christianity of Augustine of Hippo. Fifteen papers from international scholars make up this book. Augustine set his stamp on the Latin Church, yet only in the twentieth century, with its profound, even paradigmatic change did the descendants of that church -- Anglican, Reformed, and Roman Catholic -- recognize the degree to which their inbred attitudes and theological positions were ""Augustinian."" It is, however, another measure of the importance of Augustine that many aspects of his life and meanings of his writings are still disputed. This continuing investigation and debate is evidenced in this volume.

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Book SynopsisA re-examination of the social processes behind religious conversions in the Ancient and Early Middle Ages. This volume explores religious conversion in late antique and early medieval Europe at a time when the utility of the concept is vigorously debated. Though conversion was commonly represented by ancient and early medieval writersas singular and personally momentous mental events, contributors to this volume find gradual and incomplete social processes lurking behind their words. A mixture of examples and approaches will both encourage a deepening of specialist knowledge and spark new thinking across a variety of sub-fields. The historical settings treated here stretch from the Roman Hellenism of Justin Martyr in the second century to the ninth-century programs of religious and moral correction by resourceful Carolingian reformers. Baptismal orations, funerary inscriptions, Christian narratives about the conversion of stage-performers, a bronze statue of Constantine, early Byzantine ethnographic writings, and re-located relics are among the book's imaginative points of entry. This focused collection of essays by leading scholars, and the afterword by Neil McLynn, should ignite conversations among students of religious conversion andrelated processes of cultural interaction, diffusion, and change both in the historical sub-fields of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages and well beyond. This book is one of two collections of essays on religious conversion drawn from the activities of the Shelby Cullum Davis Center for Historical Studies at Princeton University between 1999 and 2001. The other volume, Conversion: Old Worlds and New, is also published by the Universityof Rochester Press. Contributors: Susan Elm, Anthony Grafton, Richard Lim, Rebecca Lyman, Michael Maas, Neil McLynn, Kenneth Mills, Eric Rebillard, Julia M. H. Smith, Raymond Van Dam.Trade ReviewOffer[s] key insights into the study of religious conversion across various 'subfields of history'. . . impressive contributions to the reassessment of the role of religion in history. * COMITATUS *Table of ContentsInscriptions and Conversions: Gregory of Nazianzus on Baptism - Susanna Elm The Politics of Passing: Justin Martyr's Conversion as a Problem of "Hellenization" - Rebecca Lyman Conversion and Burial in the Late Roman Empire - Eric Rebillard Converting the Un-Christianizable: The Baptism of Stage Performers in Late Antiquity - Richard Lim The Many Conversions of the Emperor Constantine - Raymond Van Dam "Delivered from Their Ancient Customs": Christianity and the Question of Cultural Change in Early Byzantine Ethnography - Michael Maas "Emending Evil Ways and Praising God's Omnipotence": Einhard and the Uses of Roman Martyrs - Julia M. H. Smith Seeing and Believing: Aspects of Conversion from Antoninus Pius to Louis the Pious - Neil McLynn

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Book SynopsisA history of the role played by the Franciscans during the contentious Wars of Religion (1562-1594). In this paperback reissue of The Politics of Piety, author Megan Armstrong situates the Franciscan order at the heart of the religious and political conflicts of the late sixteenth century to show how a medieval charismatic religious tradition became an engine of political change. The friars used their redoubtable skills as preachers, intellectual training at the University of Paris, and personal and professional connections with other Catholic reformers and patrons to successfully galvanize popular opposition to the spread of Protestantism throughout the sixteenth century. By 1589, the friars used these same strategies on behalf of the Catholic League to try to prevent thesuccession of the Protestant heir presumptive, Henry of Navarre, to the French throne. This book contributes to our understanding of religion as a formative political impulse throughout the sixteenth century by linking the long-term political activism of the friars to the emergence of the French monarchy of the seventeenth century. Megan C. Armstrong is Associate Professor of History at McMaster University.Trade ReviewAn extremely readable account, written in a lively and fluent style. . . presents a convincing case for the importance of the Franciscans' political and spiritual role and their contribution to the triumph of Catholicism. H- * FRANCE *For the first time, this book brings into focus the substantial Franciscan role in the French religious wars and as such makes a welcome contribution to our understanding of the period. One of the real strengths of this text is the careful contextualization of the Observant Franciscans in the wider political and religious struggles of the period. -- Eric Nelson * ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW, Vol 39 No 2 *This is an extremely readable account, written in a lively and fluent style, establishing an effective balance between quotation, anecdote and analysis. The main themes are clearly enunciated and followed through, and it presents a convincing case for the importance of the Franciscans' political and spiritual role and their contribution to the triumph of Catholicism. * H-FRANCE *Engagingly written. . . it is solidly based on manuscript and primary printed sources. . . what she has done in this book is to put in place an important piece of the puzzle of explaining why France remained Catholic. * CATHOLIC HISTORICAL REVIEW *Written in a lively and engaging style Armstrong demonstrates how the medieval spiritual tradition and broad popular appeal of the Franciscans provided an ideal mix for the political-even militant-activism that would create a distinctively Catholic absolutist monarchy. The book provides much needed balance for the primarily political studies that have shaped our understanding of the French Religious Wars and their aftermath. The Politics of Piety is essential reading for those interested in early modern France, religious history, and the development of French political institutions. -- Larissa Juliet Taylor, Ph.D., Associate Professor of History, Colby CollegePolitics of Piety contributes to refining the picture of traditional religion by showing that, although they owed a great deal to their medieval roots, Franciscans were not slavish followers of papal supremacy and recognised the importance of the Gallican claims to spiritual independence that arguably ensured the continuity of the Catholic Church, as it was orchestrated by the French monarchy in the seventeenth century. * JOURNAL OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY *Table of ContentsAn Age of Spiritual Crisis: The Wars of Religion Internal Reform and the Revitalization of the Franciscan Mission The French Franciscan Mission and Ecclesiastical Support Patronage and Piety The University of Paris Political Activism and the Franciscan Body Politic

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Book SynopsisEnchanted Calvinism's surprising central proposition is that Ghanaian Presbyterian communities have become more enchanted -- i.e., attuned to spiritual explanations of and remedies for suffering -- as they have become moreintegrated into capitalist modes of production. Enchanted Calvinism's central proposition is that Ghanaian Presbyterian communities, both past and present, have become more enchanted -- more attuned to spiritual explanations of and remedies for suffering -- as they havebecome integrated into capitalist modes of production. The author draws on a Weberian concept of religious enchantment to analyze the phenomena of spiritual affliction and spiritual healing within the Presbyterian Church of Ghana,particularly under the conditions of labor migration: first, in the early twentieth century during the cocoa boom in Ghana and, second, at the turn of the twenty-first century in their migration from Ghana to North America. Relying on extensive archival research, oral interviews, and participant-observation conducted in North America, Europe, and West Africa, this study demonstrates that the more these Ghanaian Calvinists became dependent on capitalist modes of production, the more enchanted their lives and, subsequently, their church became, although in different ways within these two migrations. One striking pattern that has emerged among Ghanaian Presbyterian labor migrants in North America, for example, is a radical shift in gendered healing practices, where women have become prominent healers while a significant number of men have become spirit-possessed. Adam Mohr is Senior Writing Fellow in Anthropology in the Critical Writing Program at the University of Pennsylvania.Trade ReviewAdam Mohr has through Enchanted Calvinism drawn attention to some of the important themes in Christianity that is authentically African and some of the tensions that emerged as western missionaries tried virtually to duplicate their forms of rational and cerebral Christianity within African contexts like Ghana. * JOURNAL OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY *[A] powerful contribution to Africanist scholarship. * AMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST *Adam Mohr is without doubt one of the most fascinating new scholars of historical anthropology working in West Africa and the United States today, and his work -- which resides at the dynamic intersection of medical anthropology, colonial and postcolonial diaspora studies, and the global history of religion -- is truly original and Atlantic in scope. As I read Dr. Mohr's book, I am myself enchanted by his attention to detail, his nuance and subtlety, and the brilliance with which he pulls together lives and histories almost one hundred and fifty years apart. -- Benjamin N. Lawrance, the Hon. Barber B. Conable Jr. Endowed Chair in International Studies, Rochester Institute of TechnologyTable of ContentsIntroduction The Disenchantment of Ghana's Basel Mission, 1828-1918 Enchanted Competition for the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, 1918-60s The Enchantment of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, 1960-2010 The School of Deliverance and the Enchantment of the Ghanaian Presbyterian Churches in North America The Enchantment of the United Ghanaian Community Church, Philadelphia Gendered Transformations of Enchanted Calvinism in the Ghanaian Presbyterian Diaspora Conclusion Appendix: Deliverance Questionnaire Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisEmbraces an all-encompassing interdisciplinary methodology to uncover the symbiosis of saintly and civic ideals in music, rituals, and hagiographic writing celebrating the origins and identity of a major clerical center. Medieval Liège was the seat of a vast diocese in northwestern Europe and a city of an exceptional number of churches, clergymen, and church musicians. Recognized as a priestly paradise, the city accommodated as many Masses each day as Rome. In this volume, musicologist Catherine Saucier examines the music of religious worship in Liège and reveals within the liturgy and ritual a civic function by which local clerics promoted the holy status of their city. Analyzing hagiographic and historical writings, religious art, and sung ceremonies relevant to the city's genesis, destruction, and eventual rebirth, Saucier uncovers richly varied ways in which liégeois clergymen fused music with text, image, and ritual to celebrate the city's sacred episcopal origins and saintly persona. A Paradise of Priests forges new interdisciplinary connections between musicology, the liturgical arts, the cult of saints, church history, and urban studies, and is an essential resource for scholars and students interested in the history of the Low Countries, hagiography and its reception, and ecclesiastical institutions. CatherineSaucier is assistant professor of music history at Arizona State University.Trade ReviewThis study is as revelatory for the details of city politic as it is for an understanding of the liturgy that was proper to local worship practices. The book is generously illustrated with texts and translations, liturgical tables, tabular textual comparisons, and with extensive musical and artistic examples, each of which is examined with a deft interpretive palette and assessed for the import of chronological context. -- Cynthia J. Cyrus * SPECULUM *The culmination of more than a decade of careful archival and analytical work about the music and culture of Liège (in modern Belgium). Demonstrates how music, hagiography, and civic identity were intimately intertwined in Liège during the late Middle Ages. A particularly useful volume because of the music transcriptions and translations of chant texts, many of which are not available in the Cantus Index. Balances thorough archival work with analysis of music and text. * MUSIC LIBRARY ASSOCIATION NOTES *Because of its broad scope, clear organization, and accessible style, this rich book will be of service not only to musicologists but also to scholars of liturgy, hagiography, church history, and urban history. * CATHOLIC HISTORICAL REVIEW *Weaves a compelling narrative centred on the lives of Liège's founder-bishops as celebrated in the hagiography, art, rituals and music made, enacted and re-enacted by the medieval clerical population of Liège. An expert examination of an impressively vast array of sources -- including archival, liturgical, artistic and hagiographic. A must-read for anyone interested in how one might locate the fashioning of a city's image in the extant remains of story, art, music and ritual. * EARLY MUSIC *An impeccably organized and elegantly crafted discussion of the previously under-appreciated liturgical materials of medieval Liège, and an enlightening study of the interrelations between liturgical chants and the civic culture in which they existed and which they sought to uphold. It serves as a model of how a study of localized liturgy should be treated, and as a valuable resource for those interested in the ecclesiastical history of the city (it includes a helpful handlist of chant books from the diocese of Liège, to encourage further attention). * MUSIC & LETTERS *Saucier's A Paradise of Priests represents a substantial achievement in a number of fields, including medieval and Renaissance musicology, urban history, and church history. The book's readable style will make it accessible to students as well as to scholars and teachers. A seamless and compelling narrative. -- Susan Boynton, Columbia UniversitySaucier's monograph is a vital contribution to the study of music, politics, and identity construction through the celebration of local saints in the Middle Ages. Saucier's study is grounded in detailed readings of the office texts and melodies . . . and is rounded out by a deft application of historical and art-historical research findings . . . . Fluently written. * Journal of the American Musicological Society *Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Sound of Civic Sanctity in the Priestly Paradise of Liège Martyred Bishops and Civic Origins: Promoting the Clerical City The Intersecting Cults of Saints Theodard and Lambert: Validating Bishops as Martyrs The Civic Cult of Saint Hubert: Venerating Bishops as Founders Clerical Concord, Disharmony, and Polyphony: Commemorating Bishop Notger's City Military Triumph, Civic Destruction, and the Changing Face of Saint Lambert's Relics: Invoking the Defensor patriae Conclusion: Hearing Civic Sanctity Appendix: Medieval Service Books Preserving the Chant Repertory Sung in the City of Liège Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisReexamines the first twenty years of the East African revival movement in Uganda, 1935-1955, arguing that through the movement African Christians articulated and developed a unique spiritual lifestyle. Starting in the mid-1930s, East African revivalists (or, Balokole: "the saved ones") proclaimed a message of salvation, hoping to revive the mission churches of colonial East Africa. Frustrated by what they believed to be the tepid spiritual state of missionary Christianity, they preached that in order to be saved, converts had to confess publicly the specific sins they had committed, putting them "in the light." By "walking in the light" with other revival brethren, converts reoriented their lives, articulating this reorientation in the stark terms of light and darkness: they had left their dark past and now lived in the light of salvation. This book uses missionary and Colonial Office archives, contemporary newspapers, archival collections in Uganda, anthropologists' field notes, oral histories, and interviews by the author in order to reexamine the first twenty years of the East African revivalmovement (roughly, 1935-1955). Focusing upon the creative, controversial, and remarkable efforts of the ordinary African Christians who comprised the vast majority of the movement, it challenges previous historical analyses that have seen in the revival the replication of British evangelical holiness spirituality or, alternatively, a manifestation of late colonial dissent. Instead, this study argues, the Balokole revival was a movement through which African Christians articulated and developed a unique spiritual lifestyle, one that responded creatively to the sociopolitical contexts of late colonial East Africa. Jason Bruner is Assistant Professor of Global Christianityat Arizona State University.Trade ReviewThis book makes a significant contribution . . . Bruner's writing style (clear and concise) makes his work enjoyable to read and accessible to a wide range of readers interested in religious movements in East Africa. * ANGLICAN AND EPISCOPAL HISTORY *[A] valuable contribution to the literature on African Christianity, religious conversion, and late colonial Uganda. This lucid and discerning analysis of lived religion deserves a wide readership. * H-EMPIRE *[A]n insightful and rewarding investigation of the revival movement of East Africa in Uganda. It is an important contribution to African historical and religious scholarship, and indeed to contemporary soteriological discussions; it is useful for graduate students, and every seminary library should acquire a copy. * READING RELIGION *Bruner's volume is a significant contribution to the history of the East African Revival and offers a valuable approach for the examination of revivalist movements in modern history and their cultural impact in particular sociopolitical contexts. * ANTHROCYBIB *Bruner's book provides an excellent, clearly written introduction for anyone interested in the history of Christian missions and revivalism to a religious movement that deserves to be more widely known. * MARGINALIA *Bruner's writing is engaging and Living Salvation offers an important addition to the literature of the East African Revival. * AFRICA *Bruner's book is an important contribution to wider debates about Evangelical revivalism as a movement of the global South. * JOURNAL OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY *

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Book SynopsisGoes behind the scenes and uncovers the human side of the larger-than-life Reformers through user-friendly narrative stories on the Reformation.

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Book SynopsisThis book rises out of Dr. Wayne Hankey’s 2015 Aquinas Lecture at the University of Dallas. It explains the Neoplatonic structure and doctrine of St. Thomas’s treatment of God in the Summa theologiae with the aim of showing that his doctrine of being is at root both Trinitarian and incarnational. By moving step by step through the questions on God in Himself in the Summa, Hankey demonstrates the circular structures of the Summa theologiae. The meeting of two motioyns, one descending from God by the light of revelation, the other rising from creatures by the light of natural reason, create these. Because Being Itself is self-related and self-affecting in an internal dynamic of self-differentiation, remaining, going out, and return are established as the universal governing structure, within and without. Being generates and includes its own othering. When Thomas’s treatment of God in Himself is completed in the Trinity of circularly self-giving infinite subsistences, true being is known as the real giving and receiving of the infinite fullness of reality from itself to itself. This giving and receiving shows Himself open to being touched by us and makes understandable the ceaselessly generous emanation of finite beings, creation.

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Book SynopsisGeorge J. Marlin, author of "Fighting the Good Fight: A History of the New York Conservative Party," traces the political and electoral history of American Catholics from the time of Lord Baltimore and the founding of Maryland to the election of George W. Bush. It is an inspiring story of ethnic Catholics who arrived on America's shores with only the clothes on their back to eventually become a significant voice in local and national political affairs.

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Book SynopsisThe first document enacted by the Second Vatican Council was its Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, and the liturgical reform mandated by that document has probably had a greater impact on the average Catholic than any other action of the Council. That this liturgical reform has not in every respect been the unalloyed success hoped for by the Council Fathers, however, has only been grudgingly recognized. The liturgists and other Church officials responsible for implementing the reforms have had a vested interest in claiming success, even where there was evidence to the contrary. Nevertheless, the many and sometimes abrupt liturgical changes made were bound to affect long-established modes of worship and devotion – not to speak of the drastic move from Latin to the vernacular which came shortly after the Council, and which necessarily entailed radical change in the Church’s worship. In July 2007, Pope Benedict XVI signaled that the liturgical question needed to be revisited when he issued a motu proprio that allowed, some forty-plus years after the end of the Council, a wider celebration of the unreformed pre-Vatican-II Mass in Latin as an “extraordinary” form of the Roman rite. While the pope’s motu proprio was not a repudiation or cancellation of the Vatican II liturgical reforms — as some liturgists feared (and some traditionalists hoped) – it did indicate a sane and sensible papal recognition that liturgy must be developed organically, not “manufactured” by a “committee.” Above all, the pope recognized that the question of the liturgy must be approached realistically in the light of how the reforms have actually worked out, not of how some have imagined that they might or should have worked out. This book by Kenneth D. Whitehead, who has written extensively both on Vatican II and on the liturgy, explains Pope Benedict’s action in its proper context and describes the reactions to it, while making special reference to some of the pontiff’s own extensive previous writings on the liturgy. The author then doubles back to evaluate the Vatican II liturgical reforms generally – how and why they were enacted, what has actually come about as a result of them, and how and why a “reform of the reform” is now called for.

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Book SynopsisThe study of any masterpiece can change one’s life, but the Confessions of St. Augustine, like Plato’s Republic or Dante’s Commedia, has the almost uncanny power to enact in the reader what it describes. Plato’s book reconfigures the city of the soul by freeing it from enslavement to the tyrannical passions and making it answerable to reason in its pursuit of the good. For Augustine, who shares many of the same ends, the pursuit of the good is not the rectification of philosophical reason, but (as it was for Dante) an intensely personal and consuming love: the encounter with the living God. Oddly, it may seem, that encounter comes for Augustine through the act of reading. Unlike Plato, who depicts the process of reasoning toward the truth, Augustine finds the truth revealed in another, immeasurably greater book that cannot be read in its true sense without the help of its author. The essays uncover a variety of themes, from Augustine’s act of reading (Marc LePain and Bercier), his emphasis on memory (Roger Corriveau), and his choice to reveal to the world his “hidden and unworldly activity” (Daniel Maher), to the way Augustine’s own education might serve as a corrective to contemporary understandings of “assessment” (Gavin Colvert). The vast wake of Augustine’s work includes writers from Dante and Montaigne to Nabokov, but three representative figures were chosen to show his influence: Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the Confessions (Rick Sorenson), James Joyce in the whole range of his work (Eloise Knowlton), and T.S. Eliot in the Four Quartets (Glenn Arbery). The most direct engagement with Augustine is obviously Rousseau’s. In his essay comparing and contrasting the pivotal moments of the two Confessions, Rick Sorenson explores major differences between the way of faith and the path of reliance on reason. Joyce might be said to have taken Rousseau’s path (at least in rejecting revelation), whereas Eliot took Augustine’s. In its sophistications and anxieties, the late antiquity Augustine inhabited feels a great deal like the late modernity we inhabit now. Certainly, the barbarians of materialist thought long ago sacked the civilization our ancestors inhabited. When Eliot published The Waste Land in 1922, he already saw the old order of antiquity and Christendom as “stony rubble,” “a heap of broken images.” As one of his speakers puts it, “Dry bones can harm no one.” This old book, the Confessions, might seem to our contemporaries as dry and dead as those bones, but it is not so. Without being a defense of Christianity (as the City of God is) or a work of catechesis, the Confessions might be the greatest counter to the materialist creed in Western literature. It recounts Augustine’s central, intensely personal, and ultimately liberating struggle to conceive of spiritual substance, an intellectual achievement without which he cannot even hope to accommodate his understanding to the reality of God. This book of essays has one primary end, which is to entice the reader to reopen Augustine’s book, to look over his shoulder and see what the act of reading means to him and what it has accomplished: the world-changing encounter with the substance of the Word.

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Book SynopsisIn our Western, post-Christendom society, much of Christianity's cultural power, privilege, and influence has eroded. But all is not lost, says bestselling author Gerald Sittser. Although the church is concerned and sobered by this cultural shift, it is also curious and teachable. Sittser shows how the early church offers wisdom for responding creatively to the West's increasing secularization. The early Christian movement was surprisingly influential and successful in the Roman world, and so different from its two main rivals--traditional religion and Judaism--that Rome identified it as a "third way." Early Christians immersed themselves in the empire without significant accommodation to or isolation from the culture. They confessed Jesus as Lord and formed disciples accordingly, which helped the church grow in numbers and influence. Sittser explores how Christians today can learn from this third way and respond faithfully, creatively, and winsomely to a world that sees Christianity as largely obsolete. Each chapter introduces historical figures, ancient texts, practices, and institutions to explain and explore the third way of the Jesus movement, which, surprising everyone, changed the world.Table of ContentsContents1. Then and Now2. Old World and New World3. Fulfillment4. Map5. Authority6. Identity and Community7. Worship8. Life in the World9. Crossing to SafetyConclusion: Now and Then

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Book SynopsisMax Weber's sociological theories of secularization have vastly influenced the study of Protestant belief. "Protestant Modernity" offers a multifaceted understanding of secularization within the broader context of nineteenth-century liberal Protestantism. Anthony J. Carroll reconstructs Weber's original writings to highlight Protestant motifs, reviews current secularization theories, and settles debates about contested meanings of secularization in a volume that will be essential reading for students and scholars of theology and the sociology of religion.

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Book SynopsisIn this magisterial work, leading cultural critic Mary Eberstadt delivers an influential new theory about the decline of religion in the Western world. The conventional wisdom is that the West first experienced religious decline, followed by the decline of the family. Eberstadt turns this standard account on its head. Marshaling an impressive array of research, from fascinating historical data on family decline in pre-Revolutionary France to contemporary popular culture both in the United States and Europe, Eberstadt shows the reverse is also true: the undermining of the family has further undermined Christianity itself. Drawing on sociology, history, demography, theology, literature, and many other sources, Eberstadt shows that family decline and religious decline have gone hand in hand in the Western world in a way that has not been understood before—that they are, as she puts it in a striking new image summarizing the book’s thesis, “the double helix of society, each dependent on the strength of the other for successful reproduction.” In sobering final chapters, Eberstadt then lays out the enormous ramifications of the mutual demise of family and faith in the West. While it is fashionable in some circles to applaud the decline of both religion and the nuclear family, there are, as Eberstadt reveals, enormous social, economic, civic, and other costs attendant on both declines. Her conclusion considers this compelling question: whether the economic and demographic crisis now roiling Europe and spreading to America will have the unintentional result of reviving the family as the most viable alternative to the failed welfare state—fallout that could also lay the groundwork for a religious revival as well.How the West Really Lost God is a startlingly original account of how secularization happens and a sweeping brief about why everyone should care. A book written for agnostics as well as believers, atheists as well as “none of the above,” it will permanently change the way every reader understands the two institutions that have hitherto undergirded Western civilization as we know it—family and faith—and the fundamental nature of the relationship between those two pillars of history.Trade Review“An absolutely brilliant and strikingly fresh portrait of the ‘double-helix’ of faith and family, coupled with a potentially game-changing analysis of the why and how of secularization, all written with the sparkle and empathy that characterize the work of one of America’s premier social analysts." —George Weigel, Distinguished Senior Fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center, Washington, D.C. “You cannot understand the real philosophical problems of the West–which have been mounting for 40 years—without reading Mary Eberstadt’s new book How the West Really Lost God.”—Jonathan V. Last, author of What to Expect When No One's Expecting: America's Coming Demographic Disaster “How the West Really Lost God” is a clear, compelling and ultimately convincing presentation of the relationship between faith and family. It’s not a call to action. But it doesn’t need to be. The Church has already told Christians what to do. The book just dispels any lingering doubts about the necessity of doing it. —Emily Stimpson, Our Sunday Visitor “Every Christian leader who’s interested in engaging today’s culture (and who shouldn’t be?) should have this book on his or her desk. Her research and historical perspectives are fascinating, and I’m confident that she’ll give you enormous new information that will help you engage today’s non-believing culture more effectively.” —Phil Cooke, The Christian News Journal "Her short, elegantly written book repeatedly shows that strong families help to keep the religious practice alive and that too many people see a causal connection running exclusively in the opposite direction."—The Economist “A short column cannot do justice to the wide and deep reading and all the evidence Eberstadt has marshaled for her argument, so you are urged to read this book. What is certain is that this is one of those books that will forever change the conversation about why Christianity is in decline in the West.” —Crisis Magazine “In her deeply insightful new book, How the West Really Lost God, Mary Eberstadt suggests that there is a more fundamental cause underlying the cultural loss of religion—a cause that all the previous research has mistaken for just another effect. What if the decline of religion is integrally connected to, and perhaps even a result of, the decline of the natural family?” —Washington Times

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Book SynopsisHelen Barrett Montgomery (1861-1934) was a social reformer, a Baptist luminary, and a prominent intellectual of the American women's ecumenical missionary movement. In this definitive biography, Kendal Mobley analyzes the intellectual development of a fascinating woman and locates her in the context of her rapidly-changing times. Mobley explores Montgomery's early family influences, her education and spiritual development, and her relationship with other notable individuals of the era, including Susan B. Anthony. As Mobley points out, Montgomery believed that Christianity gave women equal spiritual and social status with men. Consequently, she saw ""woman's work for woman"" as the cutting edge of a global movement for women's emancipation.Trade ReviewA pioneering insight into the life and contribution of one of the most significant, yet overlooked, women of her time. -Laceye Warner, Associate Dean for Academic Formation and Programs, Associate Professor of the Practice of Evangelism and Methodist Studies, Duke University Divinity SchoolThis is the finest work available on one of the most important women in the history of American Christianity. -Dana L. Robert, Truman Collins Professor of World Christianity and History of Mission, Boston University School of TheologyWith fresh eyes, Kendal Mobley has judiciously researched and unearthed new facets of this remarkable woman. -Molly T. Marshall, President and Professor of Theology and Spiritual Formation, Central Baptist Theological SeminaryMobley's reinterpretation of Montgomery's intellectual and social sphere [makes] Helen Barrett Montgomery a read for historians interested in "New Women" who do now easily fit into preconceived categories. -- Howell Williams, Louisville, KY -- The Journal of Church HistoryTable of ContentsACKNOWLEDGEMENTS CHAPTER1. HELEN BARRET MONTGOMERY: THE INTERPRETIVE CHALLENGE2. "THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD AND THE VICTORIAN FAMILY": THE CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION OF HELEN BARRETT 3. EVANGELISM, PROGRESSIVISM, AND DOMESTICITY: HELEN BARRETT'S WELLESLEY4. THE NEW WOMAN AT WORK, HOME, AND IN PUBLIC: HELEN BARRETT MONTGOMERY'S RETURN TO ROCHESTER5. MONTGOMERY'S "NEW WOMAN" AND THE LIMITLESS SCOPE OF WOMAN AS CITIZEN 6. SUSAN B. ANTHONY AND HELEN BARRETT MONTGOMERY: AN INTERGENERATIONAL FEMINIST PARTNERSHIP 7. THE ROCHESTER WOMEN'S EDUCATIONAL AND INDUSTRIAL UNION: MONTGOMERY'S PLATFORM FOR MUNICIPAL HOUSEKEEPING8. HELEN BARRETT MONTGOMERY, WALTER RAUSCHENBUSCH, AND THE BATTLE FOR PROGRESSIVE PUBLIC EDUCATION9. THE HACKETT HOUSE EPISODE AND THE BIRTH OF SOCIAL CENTERS 10. "A GREAT THEME": DOMESTIC FEMINISM AND THE GOSPEL OF THE WOMEN'S JUBILEE 11. AFTER THE JUBILEE: WOMEN'S COLLEGES AND "WORLD FRIENDSHIP" 12. A "MIDDLE-OF-THE-ROAD BAPTIST": CREEDALISM AND THE DEFENSE OF BAPTIST LIBERTY 13. CONCLUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Book SynopsisBeginning with a brief look at what the European colonists were able to make of indigenous beliefs and practices, and ending in 1730âthe year before the first published work of the Rev. Jonathan Edwardsâ Religion and Its Reformation in America seeks to highlight the distinguishing features of Christianity in the first century of its life in the colonies that would became the United States. The transplanted Church of England in Virginia, the Catholicism of Maryland, and, later on, the Quaker experience of Pennsylvania are well represented, but the heaviest emphasis falls on the "Puritans" of Massachusetts and Connecticut. Astonishingly, the leaders of a migrant population produced a religious literature that, in both quantity and intellectual acumen, is unmatched in any other colonial venue on record. Drawing on an array of texts written on the Continent, and in some cases on a personal experience of Reformed churches abroad, these so-called Puritans sought a New Church in a providentially provided New England. The general outlines of their storyâend-time excitement, the establishment of a radical new ecclesiology (which came to be known as Congregationalism), second- and third-generation confusion and compromise which yet refused to concede that their radicalism had been a mistakeâare well known to historians who specialize in this period. Presented here, however, for scholar and student alike, is something approaching a full literary recordânot just names and dates and creeds and platforms, but a rich human experience of motive, energy, action, and affect. Religion to be sure, with reform its driving forceâbut also literature in its best sense, eager to upend prevailing assumptions.Table of Contents Introduction: Migration, Invention, Declension, Awakening 1 Before America 2 Before The Pilgrims 3 A New Church In A New England A. Old World Origins B. A Trial of Separatism C. A Greater Migration D. Congregationalist Orthodoxy 4 After Zion, What? 5 Other Regions, Other Voices A. Virginia B. Maryland C. Pennsylvania and New Jersey D. New Amsterdam 6 End of an Era 7 Awakening versus Enlightenment

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Book SynopsisMormonism in Britain began in the late 1830s with the arrival of American missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Not long afterward, thousands of British converts emigrated to Utah and became a kind of lifeblood for the early Mormon Church. England's North West, where Mormonism had its strongest presence, has become a place of profound significance to the church, yet its early importance to Mormonism has never been fully explored. Matthew Rasmussen's detailed account examines how Mormonism has changed and endured in Britain. After many British believers left for America, church membership in England fell so sharply that the movement in Britain seemed to be on the brink of collapse. Yet British Mormonism gradually rebuilt and continues today. How did this religious minority flourish when so many nineteenth-century revivalist movements did not? Rasmussen explains Mormonism’s inception, perpetuation, and maturation in Britain in a compelling case study of a “new religious movement” with staying power.Trade Review“The finest comprehensive study of the LDS Church in an international setting that I have ever read. Beautifully written, very well organized, and superbly well researched, Rasmussen’s study takes the reader on a journey through three distinct phases of Mormonism in the United Kingdom.” —Richard E. Bennett, author of Mormons on the Missouri—And Should We Die, 1846–1852 “An outstanding LDS history book. I don’t know of any other books like this one. Matthew Rasmussen is a gifted writer.” —Ronald Watt, author of The Mormon Passage of George D. Watt: First British Convert, Scribe for Zion “Mormonism and the Making of a British Zion should rightly act as a standard for other aspiring historians seeking to resurrect Mormonism’s international story.”—Association of Mormon Letters “First, Rasmussen is a gifted writer whose English prose is enviable at least and awe-inspiring at best. As a recipient of a bachelor of arts in English from the University of Utah, he has found his canvas in this book and has utilized his skill as a literary artist. Second, his research methodology is equally inspiring. . . . At every turn, it is clear Rasmussen is bringing to the reader every available resource imaginable to expertly craft his story.”—BYU Studies “Matthew Rasmussen gives us a good read, incorporating named local individuals and events within the wider dynamics of US church strategy. Non-Mormon readers will learn a great deal about the LDS Church at large in and through this cameo of an unusually ‘sacred space.’”—Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, Brigham Young University

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Book SynopsisThe study of Joseph Smith and his writings have
long been shaped by the polemical atmosphere that surrounds Smith's claims to divine authorship. Even after a half-century of serious scholarship devoted to Smith, fundamental questions remain about how to best interpret features of his life and writing. Smith's own History of Joseph Smith (edited and revised at the beginning of the twentieth century by B. H. Roberts) created an enduring image that influenced Mormon theology, doctrine, and polity for generations. With new historical documents now available, however, a reappraisal of Smith and the origins of Mormonism warrant attention. Ronald O. Barney - a former editor of the Joseph Smith Papers - applies new interpretations to Smith
in history and memory, re-examining both his writings and contemporary accounts. The book explores the best methodologies for appraising the historical record, including a review of Smith's world and its contextual background, an analysis of his foundational experiences, and a characterization of Smith as a man and prophet. Though the premise of re-evaluation may be unsettling to traditionalists, a modern reconsideration of the historical record's entire range of sources is necessary to fashion a strategy for evaluating Smith and his enduring but complex legacy.Trade ReviewThere is so much I enjoyed about this work. My copy has dozens 
of dog-eared pages that I have marked with enthusiastic notes. This will be an indispensable volume for the next generations of graduate students and scholars." - Christopher James Blythe, faculty research associate, Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, Brigham Young University

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Book SynopsisAs the story goes, an itinerant preacher once visited the Bluegrass region and proclaimed heaven to be “a mere Kentucky of a place.” The Commonwealth’s first Baptists certainly thought so as they began settling the region a decade before statehood. By 1785 a group of pioneering preachers formed the Elkhorn Association, widely regarded as the oldest Baptist association west of the Alleghenies. Often portrayed in the historiography as the vanguard of a new frontier democracy, the Elkhorn Association, on closer inspection, reveals itself to be far more complex. In A Mere Kentucky of a Place, Keith Harper argues that the association’s Baptist ministers were neither full-fledged frontier egalitarians nor radical religionists but simply a people in transition. These ministers formed their identities in the crucible of the early national period, challenged by competing impulses, including their religious convictions, Jeffersonian Republicanism, and a rigid honor code—with mixed results.With a keen eye for human interest, Harper brings familiar historical figures such as John Gano and Elijah Craig to life as he analyzes leadership in the Elkhorn Association during the early republic. Mining the wealth of documents left by the association, Harper details the self-aware struggle of these leaders to achieve economic wealth, status, and full social and cultural acceptance, demonstrating that the Elkhorn Association holds a unique place in the story of Baptists in the “New Eden” of Kentucky.Ideal for course adoption in religious studies and students of Kentucky history, this readable work is sure to become a standard source on the history of religion on the Kentucky frontier.Trade Review"This book will become a standard source on the history of religion on the Kentucky frontier. It deserves a wide readership.”—Thomas H. Appleton Jr., coeditor of Kentucky Women: Their Lives and Times"This book captures the remarkable transformation of Baptist identity and experience with fresh and powerful insight. On the whole, this book offers a unique and significant contribution to the scholarship of religion and American life in the early American republic.” —Gregory A. Wills, author of Democratic Religion: Freedom, Authority and Church Discipline in the Baptist South, 1785–1900

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Book SynopsisIn the first full-length scholarly synthesis of the African American Churches of Christ, Edward J. Robinson provides a comprehensive look at the church’s improbable development against a backdrop of African American oppression. The journey begins with a lesser known preacher, F. F. Carson, in many ways a forerunner in the struggles and triumphs awaiting the preachers and lay people in the congregations to come. Robinson then builds on scholarship treating well-known figures, including Marshall Keeble and G. P. Bowser, to present a wide-ranging history of African American Churches of Christ from their beginnings—when enslaved people embraced the nascent Stone-Campbell Christian Movement even though founder Alexander Campbell himself favored slavery. The author moves on to examine how the churches grew under the leadership of S. R. Cassius, even as Jim Crow restrictions put extreme pressure on organizations of any kind among African Americans.Robinson's well-researched narrative treats not only the black male leaders of the church, but also women leaders, such as Annie C. Tuggle, as well as notable activities of the church, including music, education, and global evangelism, thus painting a complete picture of African American Churches of Christ. Through scholarship and compelling storytelling, Robinson tells the two-hundred-year tale of how "black believers survived and thrived on the discarded 'scraps' of America, forging their own identity, fashioning their own lofty ecclesiology and 'hard' theology, and creating their own papers, lectureships, liturgy, and congregations." A groundbreaking exploration by a seasoned scholar in American religion, Hard-Fighting Soldiers is sure to become the standard text for anyone researching the African American Churches of Christ.Trade ReviewThis book will become the reference for anyone doing research on the African American Churches of Christ." - Jerry Rushford, director of Churches of Christ Heritage Center, Pepperdine University

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Book SynopsisReligion is a subject often overlooked or ignored by public historians. Whether they are worried about inadvertent proselytizing or fearful of contributing to America's ongoing culture wars, many heritage professionals steer clear of discussing religion's formative role in the past when they build collections, mount exhibits, and develop educational programming. Yet religious communities have long been active contributors to the nation's commemorative landscape.Exhibiting Evangelicalism provides the first account of the growth and development of historical museums created by white evangelical Christians in the United States over the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Exploring the histories of the Museum of the Bible, the Billy Graham Center Museum, the Billy Sunday Home, and Park Street Church, Devin C. Manzullo-Thomas illustrates how these sites enabled religious leaders to develop a coherent identity for their fractious religious movement and to claim the centrality of evangelicalism to American history. In their zeal to craft a particular vision of the national past, evangelicals engaged with a variety of public history practices and techniques that made them major players in the field—including becoming early adopters of public history's experiential turn.

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Book SynopsisThis book explores shared religious practicesamongJews, Christians, and Muslims, focusing primarily on the medieval Mediterranean. It examines the meanings members of each community ascribed to the presence of the religious other at "their" festivals or holy sites during pilgrimage. Communal boundaries were often redefined or dissolved during pilgrimage and religious festivals. Yet, paradoxically, shared practices served to enforce communal boundaries, since many of the religious elite devised polemical interpretations of these phenomena which highlighted the superiority of their own faith.Such interpretations became integral to each group's theological understanding of self and other to such a degree that in some regions, religious minorities were required to participate in the festivals of the ruling community. In all formulations, otherness remained an essential component of both polemic and prayer.

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Book SynopsisThis book studies the interplay of theology and poetics in the three great epics of early-modern England: the Faerie Queene, Paradise Lost, and Paradise Regained. Bond examines the relationship between the poems’ primary heroes, Arthur and the Son, who are godlike, virtuous, and powerful, and the secondary heroes, Redcrosse and Adam, who are human, fallible, and weak. He looks back at the development of this pattern of dual heroism in classical, Medieval, and Italian Renaissance literature, investigates the ways in which Spenser and Milton adapted the model, and demonstrates how the Jesus of Paradise Regained can be seen as the culmination of this tradition. Challenging the opposition between “Calvinist,” “allegorical” Spenser and “Arminian,” “dramatic” Milton, this book offers a new account of their doctrinal and literary affinities within the European epic tradition. Arguing that Spenser influenced Milton in fundamental ways, Bond establishes a firmer structural and thematic link between the two authors, and shows how they transformed a strongly antifeminist genre by the addition of a crucial, although at times ambivalent, heroine. He also proposes solutions to some of the most difficult and controversial theological cruxes posed by these poems, in particular Spenser’s attitude to free will and Milton’s to the Trinity. By providing a deeper understanding of the religious agendas of these epics, this book encourages a rapprochement between scholarly approaches that are too narrowly concerned with either theology or poetics.

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Book SynopsisThe Visionary Queen affirms Marguerite de Navarre’s status not only as a political figure, author, or proponent of nonschismatic reform but also as a visionary. In her life and writings, the queen of Navarre dissected the injustices that her society and its institutions perpetuated against women. We also see evidence that she used her literary texts, especially the Heptaméron, as an exploratory space in which to generate a creative vision for institutional reform. The Heptaméron’s approach to reform emerges from statistical analysis of the text’s seventy-two tales, which reveals new insights into trends within the work, including the different categories of wrongdoing by male, institutional representatives from the Church and aristocracy, as well as the varying responses to injustice that characters in the tales employ as they pursue reform. Throughout its chapters, The Visionary Queen foregrounds the trope of the labyrinth, a potent symbol in early modern Europe that encapsulated both the fallen world and redemption, two themes that underlie Marguerite's project of reform.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction. Marguerite de Navarre: The Visionary Queen Part I: Labyrinthine Motifs in Marguerite’s Era, Endeavors, and Spiritual Outlook 1. The Labyrinth as Structure and Symbol: From Experience to Writing in the Medieval and Early Modern Contexts 2. From the Labyrinth, a Vision: Competing Influences on Marguerite’s Religious, Political, and Creative Endeavors 3. “We Walk by Faith, Not by Sight”: Exegesis, Pilgrimage, and Labyrinthine Connections in the Reformation Part II: The Heptaméron as Textual Labyrinth 4. Into the Labyrinth: Mirroring Sin, Prompting Reform 5. Down Tortuous Paths: Exploring Approaches to Justice and Reform 6. Above the Labyrinth: A Higher Vision for Reforming the Self and Society Conclusion. The Empirical Reader at Labyrinth’s End: Responding to Marguerite’s Vision Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisIn The Full Gospel in Zion, Alan J. Clark explores the dynamic history of Pentecostalism in Utah. Although the story of Pentecostalism now spans the entire globe, there is no previous study of its growth and development among the mountains and valleys of the Beehive State. This book recovers and reveals the identities of the earliest Pentecostal pioneers across the state and places the founding churches within the historical narrative of Utah religion in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Utah Pentecostals encountered a unique religious community in which to evangelize, and it presented them with unanticipated difficulties. Pentecostals were forced to interact with members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to an intimate and constant degree, owing to their large religious majority in the region. Pentecostal/Latter-day Saint interactions revealed surprising similarities in belief and unexpected obstacles in evangelism, as Latter-day Saints did not respond as other Christians did to the Pentecostal message, pushing Pentecostals to develop new approaches to establishing churches and congregations in Utah. Clark uses newspaper archives, local congregational histories, and dozens of interviews to tell the story of Utah Pentecostals presents a new and fascinating exploratione of Utah’s rich religious history during the twentieth century.Trade Review “Clark provides us with a fascinating look at Pentecostalism within the unique culture of Latter-day Saints. I recommend this book to anyone who wishes to understand not only the histories and varieties of Pentecostalisms in Utah, but also their relationship to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."—Cecil M. Robeck Jr., coeditor of The Cambridge Companion to Pentecostalism “By capturing the context of Mormon/Pentecostal interactions in Utah since the early twentieth century, Clark offers a much-needed boost and corrective. This kind of comparative religious history promises to open doors to fill that void."—James Goff, Appalachian State UniversityTable of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction 1. A Brief History of the Assemblies of God in Utah 2. Underneath the Radar: Less Represented and Independent Pentecostal Denominations in Utah 3. Struggling on the Fringes: The Latino Assemblies of God and the Asamblea ApostÓlica de la Fe en Cristo JesÚs in Utah 4. “Taking Us Higher”: Church of God in Christ History in Utah 5. “Laborers Are Needed in These Western States”: Pentecostal Woman Evangelists in Utah 6. Growing Pains: The Struggles of Pentecostal Church Growth in Utah 7. Meet the Mormons Epilogue Notes Bibliography Index

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Book Synopsis This is the first biography of Dale L. Morgan, preeminent historian of the Latter Day Saints, the fur trade, and the trails of the American West. The book explores how, despite personal struggles, Morgan remained committed to interpreting the past on the strength of documentary evidence, leaving a legacy to inspire contemporary historians. Connecting Morgan’s life with some of the broad cultural changes that shaped his experiences, this book engages with the methodological shifts that coincided with his career: the mid-twentieth-century collision of interpretations within Latter Day Saint history and the development of a descriptive, scholarly approach to that history. Morgan’s work signaled the start of new ways of understanding, studying, and retelling history, and he motivated a generation of historians from the 1930s to the 1970s to transform their historical approaches. Sounding board, mentor, and close friend to Nels Anderson, Leonard Arrington, Fawn Brodie, Juanita Brooks, Bernard DeVoto, and Wallace Stegner, Dale Morgan is the common factor linking this influential generation of mid-twentieth-century historians of western America. Trade Review“Richard Saunders charts the life and career of Dale Morgan in this deeply researched biography. Saunders places Morgan’s career in the context of the evolution of Mormon and western American history as well as changes in the publishing world. Although Morgan’s papers illuminate his scholarly work more than his personal life, Saunders manages to vividly illuminate chapters in his personal life—especially his childhood, adolescence, and final years.” —Brian Q. Cannon, Brigham Young UniversityTable of Contents List of Illustrations Foreword by Daniel Walker Howe Acknowledgments A Note on Sources List of Abbreviations Introduction: “A Thousand Utterly Trivial Things” Part I: Mormon, Historian 1. “Under the Shadow of Her Love”: Family and a Salt Lake City Childhood, 1914–1929 2. “A Sense of Being Socially Maimed”: Salt Lake City’s West High School, 1929–1933 3. “The Strange Mixture of Emotion and Intellect”: The University of Utah, Salt Lake City, 1933–1938 4. Digression: Telling the Past in Latter-day Saint Utah, 1930s Style 5. “One of Those Minds Which Dwell in a Typewriter”: The Historical Records Survey, Ogden, Utah, 1938–1940 6.“This May Not Last, but It’s Fine While It Does”: The Utah Writers’ Project, Salt Lake City, 1940–1942 7. “Not So Dull as It Sounds”: Office of Price Administration, Washington, DC, 1942–1947 8. “It Is Best to Make the Most of My Opportunities”: The Guggenheim Fellowship Travel and Salt Lake City, 1947–1949 Part II: An Uncomfortable Interlude 9. Digression: Books and History in the Postwar Context 10. “I Am in for a Long Pull”: Job Seeker in Washington, DC, and Salt Lake City, 1950–1952 11. “Sundry Kinds of Hackwork”: Writing in Washington, DC, 1950–1952 12. “Half an Easterner and Three-Quarters a Westerner”: Writing Jedediah Smith and Salt Lake City, 1952–1953 Part III: Western American Historian 13.“It Is Something to Be On My Way Again”: Bancroft Library and the Navajo Project, Berkeley, California, 1954–1962 14. “Too Many Things Have Been Going On at the Same Time”: Writing, 1954–1963 15. “Too Many Obligations Out Here”: Turning Points and Departures 16. “Struggling to Get My Disordered Life Back Under Control”: Bancroft Library, Berkeley 1964–1965 17. “I Seem to Work All the Time”: Shifting Priorities, Berkeley, 1966–1968 18. “There Are All Sorts of Problems That Will Have to Be Worked Out”: New Directions, Berkeley, California, 1969–1970 19. “As Liable to Happen to Me as to Anyone Else”: Lafayette, California, and Accokeek, Maryland, 1970–1971 Epilogue. “If History Is Going to Stay Viable”: A Historian’s Life and Contexts A Dale L. Morgan Bibliography Works Cited Index

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Book Synopsis This is the first biography of Dale L. Morgan, preeminent historian of the Latter Day Saints, the fur trade, and the trails of the American West. The book explores how, despite personal struggles, Morgan remained committed to interpreting the past on the strength of documentary evidence, leaving a legacy to inspire contemporary historians. Connecting Morgan’s life with some of the broad cultural changes that shaped his experiences, this book engages with the methodological shifts that coincided with his career: the mid-twentieth-century collision of interpretations within Latter Day Saint history and the development of a descriptive, scholarly approach to that history. Morgan’s work signaled the start of new ways of understanding, studying, and retelling history, and he motivated a generation of historians from the 1930s to the 1970s to transform their historical approaches. Sounding board, mentor, and close friend to Nels Anderson, Leonard Arrington, Fawn Brodie, Juanita Brooks, Bernard DeVoto, and Wallace Stegner, Dale Morgan is the common factor linking this influential generation of mid-twentieth-century historians of western America. Trade ReviewRichard Saunders charts the life and career of Dale Morgan in this deeply researched biography. Saunders places Morgan’s career in the context of the evolution of Mormon and western American history as well as changes in the publishing world. Although Morgan’s papers illuminate his scholarly work more than his personal life, Saunders manages to vividly illuminate chapters in his personal life—especially his childhood, adolescence, and final years." —Brian Q. Cannon, Brigham Young UniversityTable of Contents List of Illustrations Foreword by Daniel Walker Howe Acknowledgments A Note on Sources List of Abbreviations Introduction: “A Thousand Utterly Trivial Things” Part I: Mormon, Historian 1. “Under the Shadow of Her Love”: Family and a Salt Lake City Childhood, 1914–1929 2. “A Sense of Being Socially Maimed”: Salt Lake City’s West High School, 1929–1933 3. “The Strange Mixture of Emotion and Intellect”: The University of Utah, Salt Lake City, 1933–1938 4. Digression: Telling the Past in Latter-day Saint Utah, 1930s Style 5. “One of Those Minds Which Dwell in a Typewriter”: The Historical Records Survey, Ogden, Utah, 1938–1940 6. “This May Not Last, but It’s Fine While It Does”: The Utah Writers’ Project, Salt Lake City, 1940–1942 7. “Not So Dull as It Sounds”: Office of Price Administration, Washington, DC, 1942–1947 8. “It Is Best to Make the Most of My Opportunities”: The Guggenheim Fellowship Travel and Salt Lake City, 1947–1949 Part II: An Uncomfortable Interlude 9. Digression: Books and History in the Postwar Context 10. “I Am in for a Long Pull”: Job Seeker in Washington, DC, and Salt Lake City, 1950–1952 11. “Sundry Kinds of Hackwork”: Writing in Washington, DC, 1950–1952 12. “Half an Easterner and Three-Quarters a Westerner”: Writing Jedediah Smith and Salt Lake City, 1952–1953 Part III: Western American Historian 13. “It Is Something to Be On My Way Again”: Bancroft Library and the Navajo Project, Berkeley, California, 1954–1962 14. “Too Many Things Have Been Going On at the Same Time”: Writing, 1954–1963 15. “Too Many Obligations Out Here”: Turning Points and Departures 16. “Struggling to Get My Disordered Life Back Under Control”: Bancroft Library, Berkeley 1964–1965 17. “I Seem to Work All the Time”: Shifting Priorities, Berkeley, 1966–1968 18. “There Are All Sorts of Problems That Will Have to Be Worked Out”: New Directions, Berkeley, California, 1969–1970 19. “As Liable to Happen to Me as to Anyone Else”: Lafayette, California, and Accokeek, Maryland, 1970–1971 Epilogue. “If History Is Going to Stay Viable”: A Historian’s Life and Contexts A Dale L. Morgan Bibliography Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisBright Lights in the Desert explores the history of how members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Las Vegas have improved the regions' neighborhoods, inspired educational institutions, brought integrity to the marketplace, and provided wholesome entertainment and cultural refinement. The LDS influence has helped shape the metropolitan city because of its members' focus on family values and community service.Woods discusses how, through their beliefs and work ethics, they have impacted the growth of the area from the time of their first efforts to establish a mission in 1855 through the present day. Bright Lights in the Desert reveals Las Vegas as more than just a tourist destination and shows the LDS community's commitment to making it a place of deep religious faith and devotion to family.Trade Review"Woods's book will be very popular with members of the LDS community, and with nonmembers who want to know more about the area and region's history. We have long needed a solid, thorough history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in southern Nevada and this book deserves that description."—Michael S. Green, associate professor of history, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, author of Nevada: A History of the Silver State"Woods addresses an important part of Las Vegas history that has not received adequate attention. The book contributes to our understanding of the city's development."—Jonathan Foster, professor of history, Great Basin College, and author of Stigma Cities: The Reputation and History of Birmingham, San Francisco, and Las VegasTable of Contents Contents Foreword by Michael S. Green Preface Acknowledgments Chapter 1. The Latter-day Saint Corridor and the Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort Chapter 2. Post–Old Mormon Fort Early Settlement to Las Vegas Stakes (1857–1960) Chapter 3. Ignorance, Education, and Cultural Refinement Chapter 4. Business and Entertainment Chapter 5. Latter-day Saints in Elected Office and Community Service Chapter 6. Ecclesiastical Community Service to a Local Congregation in Need Chapter 7. The Story of the Las Vegas Temple Appendix A. Nevada Mothers of the Year Appendix B. Clark County Schools Named After Latter-day Saints Appendix C. Select List of Elected or Appointed Officials in the Las Vegas Metropolitan Area Appendix D. Las Vegas Temple Dedicatory Prayer, Given December 16, 1989 Appendix E. Latter-day Saint Las Vegas Regional Timeline Notes Bibliography Index About the Author

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Book SynopsisAlthough Christianity is the world’s largest religion, there is confusion over what it means to be Christian within contemporary society. For individuals it is difficult to find, form, or receive a Christian identity, let alone maintain one within a secular world. Within organizations such as the church and professions there is often a disconnection between public and private identities and the reality of being Christian in our culture. For society there is the problem of disparate portrayals of Christianity, the marginalized status of Christianity with an associated lack of influence of Christians on our society, and the ongoing shaping of Christian identity by the public arena itself. Associated questions are: should Christians try to engage in, and even shape, the public arena and if so, how?This volume examines the problem of confused and misunderstood Christian identity in a post-Christian age. It suggests ways of shaping Christian identity for the benefit of individuals and for the common good. The importance of well-formed Christian identities is illustrated by research and analysis of selected professions so that the public life of Christians can be more fulfilling and effective.This book will be valuable for all those who are interested in religious identity within a secular society. People of faith and religious organizations will benefit from a penetrating analysis of what it means to be Christian today. Similarly, those whose work involves the church, counseling, education and the performing arts will find specific applications that address concerns about faith in the workplace.

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Book SynopsisAlthough Christianity is the world’s largest religion, there is confusion over what it means to be Christian within contemporary society. For individuals it is difficult to find, form, or receive a Christian identity, let alone maintain one within a secular world. Within organizations such as the church and professions there is often a disconnection between public and private identities and the reality of being Christian in our culture. For society there is the problem of disparate portrayals of Christianity, the marginalized status of Christianity with an associated lack of influence of Christians on our society, and the ongoing shaping of Christian identity by the public arena itself. Associated questions are: should Christians try to engage in, and even shape, the public arena and if so, how?This volume examines the problem of confused and misunderstood Christian identity in a post-Christian age. It suggests ways of shaping Christian identity for the benefit of individuals and for the common good. The importance of well-formed Christian identities is illustrated by research and analysis of selected professions so that the public life of Christians can be more fulfilling and effective.This book will be valuable for all those who are interested in religious identity within a secular society. People of faith and religious organizations will benefit from a penetrating analysis of what it means to be Christian today. Similarly, those whose work involves the church, counseling, education and the performing arts will find specific applications that address concerns about faith in the workplace.

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