Religion in the Lands That Became America: A New History
Religion in the Lands That Became America: A New History
Religion in the Lands That Became America: A New History
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Description
Description
A sweeping retelling of American religious history, showing how religion has enhanced and hindered human flourishing from the Ice Age to the Information Age Until now, the standard narrative of American religious history has begun with English settlers in Jamestown or Plymouth and remained predominantly Protestant and Atlantic. Driven by his strong sense of the historical and moral shortcomings of the usual story, Thomas A. Tweed offers a very different narrative in this ambitious new history. He begins the story much earlier--11,000 years ago--at a rock shelter in present-day Texas and follows Indigenous Peoples, African Americans, transnational migrants, and people of many faiths as they transform the landscape and confront the big lifeway transitions, from foraging to farming and from factories to fiber optics. Setting aside the familiar narrative themes, he highlights sustainability, showing how religion both promoted and inhibited individual, communal, and environmental flourishing during three sustainability crises: the medieval Cornfield Crisis, which destabilized Indigenous ceremonial centers; the Colonial Crisis, which began with the displacement of Indigenous Peoples and the enslavement of Africans; and the Industrial Crisis, which brought social inequity and environmental degradation. The unresolved Colonial and Industrial Crises continue to haunt the nation, Tweed suggests, but he recovers historical sources of hope as he retells the rich story of America's religious past.
About the Author
About the Author
Thomas A. Tweed is the Harold and Martha Welch Professor of American Studies and professor of history at the University of Notre Dame. A past president of the American Academy of Religion, he is editor of Retelling U.S. Religious History and author of Crossing and Dwelling: A Theory of Religion and Religion: A Very Short Introduction.
Critical Reviews
Critical Reviews
"Thomas Tweed's Religion in the Lands that Became America is the most startling, groundbreaking, and encyclopedic account of American religious development published in the last half-century."--Jon Butler, author of God in Gotham: The Miracle of Religion in Modern Manhattan "This is a magnificent achievement. Tweed has crafted a truly new narrative, brilliantly conceived and breathtaking in its scope. Eminently readable and deeply engaging, it inaugurates a new era in American religious history."--Ann Taves, University of California at Santa Barbara "Rejecting myopic 'traditional' framings, Tweed takes the reader on an engaging and necessary journey through the narratives, beliefs, and practices of those who have lived in the land currently called America. This is a story with more characters, more places, and more voices--a better history for everyone."--Agustín Fuentes, author of Why We Believe "The book is an essential guide to understanding the complex religious history of multiple groups and their interactions. Importantly, it presents often neglected traditions, including those of Indigenous peoples both ancient and modern."--Lawrence W. Gross, University of Redlands "Thomas Tweed has written a magnificent new history of American religion that explores the many crises of sustainability, from the Ice Age to the Information Age, that have threatened human flourishing. Religion in the Lands That Became America is a strikingly original book that is designed to help us make sense of the many difficulties--ecological, technological, and spiritual--that we confront today. This is an eloquent and deeply researched book, a magisterial achievement."--Catherine A. Brekus, Harvard Divinity School
Publishing Information
Publishing Information
Publisher:
Yale University Press
Pub date:
2025-05-13
Length:
640 pages
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