Religion in America, Volume I: Primary Sources in U.S. History Series - Softcover

Dr. James T. Baker is a graduate of Baylor and Florida State Universities. He holds the title of University Distinguished Professor of History at Western Kentucky University. He has been a Fulbright Senior Lecturer in American Studies in both Korea and Taiwan, and for twenty years he directed and taught in study-abroad programs for American students in Britain and Ireland. He is now director of the United States Interns to the Canadian Parliament Program in Ottawa. He has published books on figures such as Thomas Merton, Jimmy Carter, Eric Hoffer, Ayn Rand, Brooks Hays, and Studs Terkel. Professor Baker serves as series editor for the Creators of the American Mind series and has contributed earlier volumes on Nat Turner, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln.

Part I: RELIGIOUS LIFE IN THE AMERICAS BEFORE AND OUTSIDE THE BRITISH COLONIES. 1. Native American Religious Thought and Practice. 2. Spanish Empire: "Gold, Glory, and God." 3. French Empire: "Furs, Fish, and the Faith." Part II: RELIGION IN THE BRITISH AMERICAN COLONIES: "LAND, LIBERTY, AND THE LORD." 4. Puritan Ideal. 5. Rapid Diversification of Religion in the Colonies. 6. Importance of Religious Education. 7. Insecurity and Witchcraft. 8. First Great Religious Awakening. 9. First American Intellectual Enlightenment. 10. African American Religious Experience. Part III: BIRTH OF A NATION: DRIVE FOR AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 11. Religious Groups Inspire and React to the Independence Movement. 12. Establishing the Principle of Freedom of Religious Choice. 13. Effect of Independence on the Various Religious Groups. 14. Religious Individualism and Further Diversification. Part IV: A NEW NATION: RELIGIOUS GROWING PAINS AND PLEASURES. 15. Traditional Religious Groups and New Influences. 16. Second Great Religious Awakening. 17. Second Intellectual Enlightenment. 18. Perfectionism and Its Utopian Dreams and Experiments. 19. Religious Motivations for reform: Abolition and the Rights of Women. Part V: CRISIS AND REBIRTH: THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR. 20. Religious Reactions to and Justifications for the War. 21. Black Liberation. 22. Abraham Lincoln and the New Testament in America's Civil Religion.