Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism

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Macmillan, Apr 5, 2004 - History - 417 pages
An authoritative history of the vital role of secularist thinkers and activists in the United States, from a writer of “fierce intelligence and nimble, unfettered imagination” (The New York Times)

At a time when the separation of church and state is under attack as never before, Freethinkers offers a powerful defense of the secularist heritage that gave Americans the first government in the world founded not on the authority of religion but on the bedrock of human reason.

In impassioned, elegant prose, celebrated author Susan Jacoby paints a striking portrait of more than two hundred years of secularist activism, beginning with the fierce debate over the omission of God from the Constitution. Moving from nineteenth-century abolitionism and suffragism through the twentieth century’s civil liberties, civil rights, and feminist movements, Freethinkers illuminates the neglected accomplishments of secularists who, allied with liberal and tolerant religious believers, have stood at the forefront of the battle for reforms opposed by reactionary forces in the past and today.

Rich with such iconic figures as Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Clarence Darrow—as well as once-famous secularists such as Robert Green Ingersoll, “the Great Agnostic”—Freethinkers restores to history generations of dedicated humanists. It is they, Jacoby shows, who have led the struggle to uphold the combination of secular government and religious liberty that is the glory of the American system.

From inside the book

Contents

Introduction
1
Revolutionary Secularism
13
The Age of Reason and Unreason
35
Lost Connections Anticlericalism Abolitionism and Feminism
66
The Belief and Unbelief of Abraham Lincoln
104
Evolution and Its Discontents
124
The Great Agnostic and the Golden Age of Freethought
149
Dawn of the Culture Wars
186
The Best Years of Our Lives
292
Culture Wars Redux
317
Reason Embattled
348
Robert Ingersolls Eulogy for Walt Whitman March 30 1892
367
Notes
371
Selected Bibliography
389
Acknowledgments
399
Index
403

Unholy Trinity Atheists Reds Darwinists
227
Onward Christian Soldiers
268

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About the author (2004)

Susan Jacoby began her writing career as a reporter for The Washington Post. Her first book, Moscow Conversations, was based on the articles she contributed to the Post from Moscow between 1969 and 1971. Her other books include Wild Justice: The Evolution of Revenge, The Possible She, Half-Jew: A Daughter's Search for Her Family's Buried Past, Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism, The Age of American Unreason, The Great Agnostic: Robert Ingersoll and American Freethought, and Strange Gods: A Secular History of Conversion.

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