Freethinkers A History of American Secularism

by Jacoby, Susan

• ISBN13: 9780805077766
• ISBN10: 0805077766
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-01-07
• Publisher: Holt Paperbacks

Summary

"Jacoby accomplishes her task with clarity, thoroughness, and an engaging passion." Los Angeles Times Book Review 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 traces 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 achievements of secularists who, allied with tolerant believers, have led the battle for reform in the past and today.Rich with such iconic figures as Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Paine, and the once-famous Robert Green Ingersoll, Freethinkers restores to history the passionate humanists who struggled against those who would undermine the combination of secular government and religious liberty that is the glory of the American system.

Author Biography

Susan Jacoby is the author of five books including Wild Justice, a Pulitzer Prize finalist. A contributor to The Washington Post, The New York Times, Newsday, and Vogue, she lives in New York City.

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(12)
Revolutionary Secularism	13	(22)
The Age of Reason and Unreason	35	(31)
Lost Connections: Anticlericalism, Abolitionism, and Feminism	66	(38)
The Belief and Unbelief of Abraham Lincoln	104	(20)
Evolution and Its Discontents	124	(25)
The Great Agnostic and the Golden Age of Freethought	149	(37)
Dawn of the Culture Wars	186	(41)
Unholy Trinity: Atheists, Reds, Darwinists	227	(41)
Onward, Christian Soldiers	268	(24)
The Best Years of Our Lives	292	(25)
Culture Wars Redux	317	(31)
Reason Embattled	348	(19)
Appendix: Robert Ingersoll's Eulogy for Walt Whitman, March 30, 1892	367	(4)
Notes	371	(18)
Selected Bibliography	389	(10)
Acknowledgments	399	(4)
Index	403