Religion, Culture, and Politics in the Twentieth-Century United States

Anyone who seeks to understand the dynamics of culture and politics in the United States must grapple with the importance of religion in its many diverse and contentious manifestations. With conservative evangelicals forming the base of the Republican Party, racial-ethnic communities often organized along religious lines, and socio-political movements on the left including major religious components, many of the country's key cultural-political debates are carried out through religious discourse.
In this volume, Mark Hulsether leads readers on a tour of religion in the United States. He introduces key players and offers a set of case studies to explore the interaction of these players with major trends in U.S. cultural history. Students in American studies and cultural studies will especially appreciate how Hulsether frames his analysis using categories such as cultural hegemony, race and gender contestation, popular culture, and empire, enabling a more informed and constructive discussion of religion in these fields. Hulsether offers a synthesis that is concise yet internally complex and dynamic& mdash;one that gives special attention to religious diversity and conflict, the relations between religious groups and broader historical trends, and the internal struggles of religious people as they set priorities and cope with emerging change.


On issues from A to Z, abortion to Zionism, it is impossible to understand the contours of American political culture without paying attention to religion. Mark Hulsether provides a concise introduction to the key themes, actors, and institutions of religion as they relate to North American culture and society in the twentieth century, using an approach informed by the fields of U.S. religious history and American Studies. His dual goal is to introduce religions on their own terms and to chart their dynamic relations with broader cultural trends and socio-political forces, as understood in U.S. history and the wider interdisciplinary study of North America. Hulsether offers a concise synthetic statement, accessible for readers who are not specialists in U.S. religion. More than other leading books that might serve as introductions to this subject, Hulsether stresses issues of cultural pluralism, conflict, and contestation - especially on lines of race, ethnicity, and gender. He offers a valuable bridge between specialized scholarship in U.S. religion and a wider field of interdisciplinary research on U.S. history and culture and society that often underplays the continuing importance of religious identities and subcultures. Mainline Protestantism, Catholicism, white evangelicalism, the black church and Judaism are amongst the many religious groups treated. Based on the timeline of American history, events are recontextualised and rediscovered, examined from new, religious angles. Readers will develop an understanding of the importance of American religion in the twentieth century.




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