Religion in American Life: A Short History Rating :
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
AN INTERESTING HISTORICAL REVIEW
By Corrine M. Stocking
This is a required reading text for a course I am auditing
at the local university. My wife was kind enough to acquire
it for me to use in the course.
It is an analysis of the indfluince of various religions but
particularly Christianity in the early stages of the American
republic, and the iinfluence of the variety of religions in the
current reality of the 21st century, as the nation becomes
a destination for non-wester-Europian immigration.
Well written and enjoyable!
Robert Stocking
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Religion:A profound impact in the history of America
By 1slasher
What a pleasant suprise! This book is objectively written; easily readable and accurate without bias and proved to be a incredible resource of information. So much so that I intend to use the book as our text for an OLLI course that I will be offering to Seniors in our seminars on continuing education.
5 of 14 people found the following review helpful.
Mediocre
By D. Smithee
Religion in American Life: A Short History is merely a disclosure of a series of events relating to the role of religion in America's history.
There is a great deal of information here that is presented in a haphazard manner. The authors' attempts at analysis are brief and shallow. The lack of footnotes or endnotes make deeper investigation difficult to impossible. The authors are unable to keep the text chronological, especially in the transition from the 19th to the 20th century. In any text like this, it is expected to jump back occasionally, but they should be brief with the past event's impact thorougly discussed and analyzed in its proper place in the timeline. Here, the events are discussed at random.
The book's two best features occupy the last quarter of the text. The first is a chronolgy of events since 1492. The second is a list of suggested further reading.
Overall, the book is worthwhile as an introduction to the subject and to get a feel for the role of relgion in America's history, development and progress, but you will want to eventually supplement it with a more carefully organized and credited work.
See all 3 customer reviews...Product Description
"Quite ambitious, tracing religion in the United States from European colonization up to the 21st century.... The writing is strong throughout."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"One can hardly do better than Religion in American Life.... A good read, especially for the uninitiated. The initiated might also read it for its felicity of narrative and the moments of illumination that fine scholars can inject even into stories we have all heard before. Read it."--Church History
This new edition of Religion in American Life, written by three of the country's most eminent historians of religion, offers a superb overview that spans four centuries, illuminating the rich spiritual heritage central to nearly every event in our nation's history. Beginning with the state of religious affairs in both the Old and New Worlds on the eve of colonization and continuing through to the present, the book covers all the major American religious groups, from Protestants, Jews, and Catholics to Muslims, Hindus, Mormons, Buddhists, and New Age believers. Revised and updated, the book includes expanded treatment of religion during the Great Depression, of the religious influences on the civil rights movement, and of utopian groups in the 19th century, and it now covers the role of religion during the 2008 presidential election, observing how completely religion has entered American politics.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #270882 in Books
- Published on: 2011-10-07
- Original language:English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.27" h x5.75" w x1.47" l,1.37 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 576 pages
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