America’s Book: The Rise and Decline of a Bible Civilization, 1794-1911 Mark A. Noll

America’s Book: The Rise and Decline of a Bible Civilization, 1794-1911 – Ebook Instant Download/Delivery ISBN(s): 9780197623466,0197623468,9780197623480, 0197623484

Product details:

• ISBN 10: 0197623484
• ISBN 13: 9780197623480
• Author: Mark A. Noll 

America’s Book shows how the Bible decisively shaped American national history even as that history influenced the use of Scripture. It explores the rise of a strongly Protestant Bible civilization in the early United States that was then fractured by debates over slavery, contested by growing numbers of non-Protestant Americans (Catholics, Jews, agnostics), and torn apart by the Civil War. This first comprehensive history of the Bible in America explains why Tom Paine’s anti-biblical tract The Age of Reason (1794) precipitated such dramatic effects, how innovations in printing by the American Bible Society created the nation’s publishing industry, why Nat Turner’s slave rebellion of 1831 and the bitter election of 1844 marked turning points in the nation’s engagement with Scripture, and why Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson were so eager to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible. Noll’s magisterial work highlights not only the centrality of the Bible for the nation’s most influential religious figures (Methodist Francis Asbury, Richard Allen of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Catholic Bishop Francis Kenrick, Jewish scholar Solomon Schechter, agnostic Robert Ingersoll), but also why it was important for presidents like Abraham Lincoln; notable American women like Harriet Beecher Stowe, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Frances Willard; dedicated campaigners for civil rights like Frederick Douglass and Francis Grimk?; lesser-known figures like Black authors Maria Stewart and Harriet Jacobs; and a host of others of high estate and low. The book also illustrates how the more religiously plural period from Reconstruction to the early twentieth century saw Scripture become a much more fragmented, though still significant, force in American culture, particularly as a source of hope and moral authority for Americans on both sides of the battle over white supremacy-both for those hoping to fight it, and for others seeking to justify it.

Table of contents:

1. Part I. Creating a Bible Civilization
2. 1. The Bible after Independence and before Paine
3. 2. The Paine Provocation
4. 3. Custodial Protestants versus Sectarian Protestants
5. 4. Francis Asbury and the Methodists
6. Part II. A Protestant Bible Civilization
7. 5. The Bible Civilization in American History
8. 6. Naming, Writing, and Speaking in a Hebrew Republic
9. 7. Publishing
10. 8. Personal Religion
11. 9. The African American Bible
12. Part III. Fractures
13. 10. Slavery and the Bible before the Missouri Compromise
14. 11. Slavery and the Bible, 1819–1833
15. 12. Democracy
16. 13. The Law and a Christian Nation
17. 14. The Common School Exception
18. Part IV. The Eclipse of Sola Scriptura
19. 15. 1844
20. 16. Whose Bible? (Catholics)
21. 17. Whose Bible? (Lutherans, Jews, Naysayers, Natives)
22. 18. Whose Bible? (Women)
23. 19. The War before the War
24. 20. Scriptural Arguments in Context
25. 21. The Civil War
26. Part V. After the Bible Civilization
27. 22. 1865–1875
28. 23. The Centennial Divide: 1876 and After
29. 24. Protestant Wounds of War
30. 25. Protestant Realignments
31. 26. Marginal No More (Jews and Catholics)
32. Part VI. Toward the Present
33. 27. Still a Bible Nation
34. 28. An Enduring Cultural Landmark
35. 29. Civil Religion
36. 30. Still under a Bushel

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