Books about American Christian history

February 3, 2012 7:54 PM

Reading about the Great Awakening (first or second) and history of American religion?

Looking for good articles and/or books that tell the history of religion in America prior to the 20th century. Especially interested in articles/books about the First and Second Great Awakenings.

It'd be great if the books discussed the interplay between religion and society at large--I'm not looking for narrow books. Although I'm most interested in non-Catholic Christianity, I'm open to anything interesting.

Thanks!

posted by j1950 to Religion & Philosophy (11 answers total)

The big general go-to book is Sydney Ahlstrom's A Religious History of the American People. For more recent work, you might check out the extensive output of Thomas Kidd, George Marsden, and Mark Noll.
posted by thomas j wise at 8:23 PM on February 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

You might want to take a look at Generations:

It examines Anglo-American history by dividing it into saecula, or seasonal cycles of history. A saeculum is about 90 years long - the length of a long human life - and is further divided into four "Turnings" that are about 22 years long - as long as the period between birth and adulthood. Children raised during a particular Turning share similar historical and cultural experiences, resulting in distinct generational types. The book suggests that interactions between generations explains why major crises occur roughly every 90 years (e.g. 1773 - 1861) and why spiritual awakenings similarly recur halfway between those crises.

Religion plays a greater role in the explanations than this summary would lead you to believe, as I recall.

It's a bit too much of a 'mill with complicated wheels' to capture the vital essence of our history, in my opinion, and not biological enough for my tastes, but it has vast sweep, and it's fun to argue with.
posted by jamjam at 8:30 PM on February 3, 2012

If I am remembering correctly, I think Nathan Hatch's "Democratization of American Christianity" is exactly what you want.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 8:37 PM on February 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

Edwin S. Gaustad's "Documentary History of Religion in America" is a collection of letters, sermons, speeches, and other documents. A rich trove of primary sources.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 9:46 PM on February 3, 2012

Best answer: Read these three first:

Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity
John Butler, Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the American People
Whitney R. Cross, The Burned Over District: The Social and Intellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion in Western New York, 1800-1850

Then try some of these:

Paul E. Johnson, A Shopkeeper's Millennium: Society and Revivals in Rochester, NY 1815-1837
Marianne Perciaccante, Calling Down Fire: Charles Grandison Finney and Revivalism in Jefferson County, NY 1800-1840.
Melvyn Stokes and Stephen Conway (eds), The Market Revolution in America: Social, Political and Religious Expressions, 1800-1880.
Frank Lambert, Inventing the Great Awakening
Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, The Churching of America 1776-2005 (early chapters are great!)
posted by Crotalus at 11:05 PM on February 3, 2012 [3 favorites]

As a British historian looking for a comparative perspective, I found a lot of the literature on the Great Awakening rather disappointing, but the two books I found most helpful were Frank Lambert's Inventing the 'Great Awakening' and Harry Stout's The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism, which take a fresh approach to the Great Awakening and aren't hidebound by evangelical pieties.

I'm also a big fan of Leigh Eric Schmidt, who I think is the best historian of American religion currently at work. If you're interested in revivalism, try his Holy Fairs: Scotland and the Making of American Revivalism; if you're intrigued by Protestant mysticism, try Restless Souls: The Making of American Spirituality; or for a brilliant work of religious/cultural history, try Hearing Things: Religion, Illusion, and the American Enlightenment. These are all very accessibly written. I haven't used his revision of Gaustad's Religious History of America, but as far as I'm concerned, Schmidt's name on the title-page is a guarantee of excellence.
posted by verstegan at 1:36 AM on February 4, 2012 [2 favorites]

The American Religion by Harold Bloom
posted by fingersandtoes at 1:01 PM on February 4, 2012

Response by poster: These are terrific! Thanks a lot.
posted by j1950 at 3:45 PM on February 4, 2012

Personally, it seems the biographies of the men who largely figured in the Great Awakening were most interesting. George Whitfield and John and Charles Wesley were some of the leaders in the movement.
posted by srbrunson at 7:01 PM on February 4, 2012

Harry S. Stout, The New England Soul: Preaching and Religious Culture in Colonial New England, and John Demos, Remarkable Providences. Stout's book is a ridiculously comprehensive study of pre-Revolutionary religion, and his central argument is that for early American settlers, the sermon was the main touchstone of cultural identity which eventually shaped the will to Independence. Demos' book is a collection of primary sources, many of which are fascinating. I bought both for an undergrad course on Early American religion and I'm using them now for further research.
posted by stoneandstar at 9:38 PM on February 4, 2012

The Kingdom of Matthias. This was required reading for an Early American History class, and I found it fascinating. It's sort of an odd side story that happened during the Second Awakening. Wild tales from a small personality cult, with a surprise twist at the end: one of the minor players went on to be pretty famous (someone you've likely at least heard of in history class).
posted by attercoppe at 2:25 AM on February 5, 2012