Einer der herausragendsten Intellektuellenhistoriker in und von den Vereinigten Staaten. Seine Arbeit konzentriert sich auf ein tiefes Verständnis der amerikanischen Vergangenheit und der intellektuellen Strömungen, die sie geprägt haben. Sein analytischer Ansatz und seine Fokussierung auf Schlüsselideen und Debatten bieten den Lesern eine einzigartige Perspektive auf die Entwicklung des amerikanischen Denkens.
Set against the backdrop of 1921 Saskatchewan, the narrative follows four teenagers as they navigate economic hardship, harsh weather, and family struggles, including their mother's mental illness and their father's detachment. The story emphasizes their resilience and mutual support while trying to preserve their Gettysburg roots. One sibling's journey to become a minister is marked by challenges in adapting to urban life, leading to a career as a house-painter. The author, an unexpected child, later uncovers the family's complex dynamics and their eventual reunion in Southern California.
The essays explore the cultural shifts in mid-twentieth-century American academia, highlighting the struggle against Christian biases that hindered Jewish participation in intellectual life from the 1930s to the 1960s. David Hollinger examines the contributions of various scholars who championed a secular ethos and cosmopolitanism amidst challenges like McCarthyism and anti-Semitic quotas. He argues that while contemporary critics view this cosmopolitanism as insufficiently multicultural, it was a significant response to the era's pervasive ideologies and conflicts, marking a notable transformation in American thought.
Challenging the pluralist model of multiculturalism, the book advocates for a cosmopolitan approach that acknowledges fluid group identities and shifting boundaries. David A. Hollinger emphasizes America's universalist ideals and proposes a fresh vision of nationalism that transcends ethnic divisions. In this tenth-anniversary edition, he includes a new postscript addressing critiques and engaging with current discussions on race, ethnicity, inequality, and nationalism, reinforcing the book's relevance in today's societal landscape.
The role of liberalized, ecumenical Protestantism in American history has too often been obscured by the more flamboyant and orthodox versions of the faith that oppose evolution, embrace narrow conceptions of family values, and continue to insist that the United States should be understood as a Christian nation. In this book, one of our preeminent
Between the 1890s and the Vietnam era, many thousands of American Protestant missionaries were sent to live throughout the non-European world. They expected to change the people they encountered, but those foreign people ended up transforming the missionaries. Their experience abroad made many of these missionaries and their children critical of racism, imperialism, and religious orthodoxy. When they returned home, they brought new liberal values back to their own society. Protestants Abroad reveals the untold story of how these missionary-connected individuals left an enduring mark on American public life as writers, diplomats, academics, church officials, publishers, foundation executives, and social activists. --
"Tracing the rise of evangelicalism and the decline of mainline Protestantism in American religious and cultural life. How did American Christianity become synonymous with conservative white evangelicalism? This sweeping work by a leading historian of modern America traces the rise of the evangelical movement and the decline of mainline Protestantism's influence on American life. In Christianity's American Fate, David Hollinger shows how the Protestant establishment, adopting progressive ideas about race, gender, sexuality, empire, and divinity, liberalized too quickly for some and not quickly enough for others. After 1960, mainline Protestantism lost members from both camps--conservatives to evangelicalism and progressives to secular activism. A Protestant evangelicalism that was comfortable with patriarchy and white supremacy soon became the country's dominant Christian cultural force. Hollinger explains the origins of what he calls Protestantism's "two-party system" in the United States, finding its roots in America's religious culture of dissent, as established by seventeenth-century colonists who broke away from Europe's religious traditions; the constitutional separation of church and state, which enabled religious diversity; and the constant influx of immigrants, who found solidarity in churches. Hollinger argues that the United States became not only overwhelmingly Protestant but Protestant on steroids. By the 1960s, Jews and other non-Christians had diversified the nation ethno-religiously, inspiring more inclusive notions of community. But by embracing a socially diverse and scientifically engaged modernity, Hollinger tells us, ecumenical Protestants also set the terms by which evangelicals became reactionary."-- Dust jacket
