|
|
Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism
|
You are here:
Home > Books by Popular Authors > Jacques Barzun > Item
|
Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism
|
by Joel A. Carpenter
Sales Rank : 535725
|
|
|
|
Paperback: 368 pages
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA July 8, 1999
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0195129075
ISBN-13: 978-0195129076
Product Dimensions:
9.1 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
From Library Journal
Carpenter (provost, Calvin Coll., Mich.) acknowledges that he was propelled by a "corrective motive" in writing about the complexity and contributions of fundamentalism as a faith system whose purposes and beliefs have all too frequently been reduced to caricature. To a large extent, he achieves his aim. He closely analyzes American fundamentalism from its humiliating encounter with modernism at the Scopes trial in the 1920s to its reemergence in the popular revivals of the 1940s and 1950s led by evangelists such as Billy Graham. Carpenter is careful to note nuances of theological difference within fundamentalism. His work is thoroughly documented, well written, and built solidly on the work of other historians of U.S. popular religion such as Ernest Sandeen (The Roots of Fundamentalism, 1970) and George Marsden (Fundamentalism and American Culture, 1971). Appropriate for academic collections in religion and in American history.?Linda V. Carlisle, Southern Illinois Univ., Edwardsville
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Kirkus Reviews
In 1925, H.L. Mencken scoffed that if he heaved an egg out of a Pullman window anywhere in the country, he would hit a fundamentalist. But by 1930, defeated by their public humiliation in the Scopes ``monkey trial,'' those same fundamentalists seemed to have disappeared. Or had they? In this groundbreaking new book, historian Carpenter, provost of Calvin College, argues that fundamentalists did not vanish in the 1930s and '40s--they went underground and built a unique and powerful subculture, with Bible schools, foreign mission societies, seminaries, camp meetings, and mom-and-pop publishing houses. Carpenter traces the vitality of the fundamentalist movement from 1925 to 1950, arguing that fundamentalism actually expanded during the '30s, when mainline Protestants were experiencing a precipitous decline. What's more, these militantly antimodern crusaders eagerly embraced the most cutting-edge of mediums, radio, to proclaim their old-time gospel message. Radio evangelists like Paul Rader and Charles Fuller gave fundamentalists a respectability they had coveted since Mencken's hurtful depictions of them as ignorant backwater bumpkins. Radio was fundamentalism's entry into many American homes. In the 1940s, the highly successful Youth for Christ movement built on this media-savvy precedent, gaining mass appeal with slick publicity campaigns and evangelists be-bopping from the pulpit to contemporary big-band tunes. So when the nation as a whole began turning to religion in the anxious days of WW II and its aftermath, fundamentalists were at the ready with their well-established infrastructure. The ``prophet'' who arose from this fundamentalist subculture and was a product of its Bible schools, radio ministries, and revival circuits was the legendary Billy Graham, who helped bring fundamentalism further into the American mainstream. A valuable contribution to a critical but neglected era in fundamentalist studies. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
|
|
|
|
