Religion History United States

Historian Kevin Schmiesing takes you to more than two-dozen sites and events that symbolize and embody America's rich and sometimes tumultuous Catholic past, including the Santa Fe Trail, Gettysburg, and the Bourbon Trail. You'll also meet both famous and infamous Catholics—including Augustus Tolton, Dr. Samuel Mudd, and Frances Cabrini—who impacted our nation's history.

In Christian Slavery, Katharine Gerbner contends that religion was fundamental to the development of both slavery and race in the Protestant Atlantic world.

In the winter of 1692 something terrible and frightening began in Salem Village. It started with several villagers having strange fits, screaming, and unnaturally contorting themselves and ended with almost 200 people in jail and at least 25 dead. Witchcraft accusations - claims that some inhabitants had forsaken God to become servants of the Devil - spread from Salem Village across Massachusetts, ensnaring innocent people from all strata of society under a burden of assumed guilt. One of the most significant and unlikely accusations was against 71-year-old grandmother Rebecca Nurse.

In the best-selling tradition of The Devil in the White City, award-winning author Brian Hicks tells the explosive story of the Morro Castle, the elegant luxury liner that burned off the coast of New Jersey on September 7, 1934. The captain died under mysterious circumstances seven hours before his ship caught fire off the New Jersey coast.

In 1802, President Thomas Jefferson distilled a leading idea in the early American republic and wrote of a wall of separation between church and state. That metaphor has come down from Jefferson to 21st-century Americans through a long history of jurisprudence, political contestation, and cultural influence. This book traces the development of the concept of separation of church and state and the Supreme Court's application of it in the law.

Mania surrounding messianic prophets has defined the national consciousness since the American Revolution. From Civil War veteran and virulent anticapitalist Cyrus Teed, to the dapper and overlooked civil rights pioneer Father Divine, to even the megalomaniacal Jim Jones, these figures have routinely been dismissed as dangerous and hysterical outliers. After years of studying these emblematic figures, Adam Morris demonstrates that messiahs are not just a classic trope of our national culture; their visions are essential for understanding American history.

The delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention blocked the establishment of Christianity as a national religion. But they could not keep religion out of American politics. From the election of 1800, when clergyman charged that deist Thomas Jefferson was unfit to lead a "Christian nation," to today, when some Democrats want to embrace the so-called Religious Left in order to compete with the Republicans and the Religious Right, religion has always been a part of American politics.

This audiobook tells the story of how viniculture in America was started and sustained by a broad spectrum of religious denominations. In the process, it offers new insights into the special relationship between wine production and consumption and the spiritual dimension of human experience.

This magisterial work (winner of the National Jewish Book Award and other honors) chronicles the 350-year history of the Jewish religion in America. Tracing American Judaism from its origins in the colonial era through the present day, Jonathan Sarna explores the ways in which Judaism adapted in this new context. How did American culture - predominantly Protestant and overwhelmingly capitalist - affect Jewish religion and culture?

Dr. John Dee and his polymath protégé Sir Francis Bacon were the most influential men in the court of Queen Elizabeth I, part of an elite group with invisible control throughout Europe. And, as Steven Sora reveals, not only were they key members of the Rosicrucians, they were the driving force behind England’s colonization of the New World and the eventual establishment of the United States. From Avalon in Newfoundland to New England to Pennsylvania and Virginia, Sora shows how Bacon and Dee’s Rosicrucian impact is felt throughout North America.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. She was not trying to start a movement. She was simply tired of the social injustice. Yet her simple act of courage started a chain of events that forever shaped the landscape of American race relations. Now, decades after her quiet defiance inspired the modern civil rights movement, Mrs. Parks' own words tell of her courageous life, her passion for freedom and equality, and her strong faith.

In This Earthly Frame, David Sehat describes the making of American secularism through its most prominent proponents and most significant detractors. He shows how its foundations were laid in the US Constitution and how it fully emerged only in the 20th century.

This comprehensive survey of Catholic history in what became the United States spans nearly 500 years, from the arrival of the first Spanish missionaries to the present. Distinguished historian Leslie Tentler explores lay religious practice and the impact of clergy on Catholic life and culture as she seeks to answer the question, What did it mean to be a "good Catholic" at particular times and in particular places?

Author Sumbul Ali-Karamali offers her personal account, discussing the many and varied questions she fielded from curious friends and schoolmates while growing up in Southern California - from diet, to dress, to prayer and holidays and everything in between. She also provides an academically reliable introduction to Islam, addressing its inception, development, and current demographics. Through this engaging work, listeners will gain a better understanding of the everyday aspects of Muslim American life.

America Bewitched is the first major history of witchcraft in America - from the Salem witch trials of 1692 to the present day. The infamous Salem trials are etched into the consciousness of modern America, the human toll a reminder of the dangers of intolerance and persecution. The refrain 'Remember Salem!' was invoked frequently over the ensuing centuries. As time passed, the trials became a milepost measuring the distance America had progressed from its colonial past, its victims now the righteous and their persecutors the shamed.

For Black Catholic women and girls, embracing the celibate religious state constituted a radical act of resistance to white supremacy and the sexual terrorism built into chattel slavery and segregation. Williams shows how Black sisters—such as Sister Mary Antona Ebo, who was the only Black member of the inaugural delegation of Catholic sisters to travel to Selma, Alabama, and join the Black voting rights marches of 1965—were pioneering religious leaders, educators, healthcare professionals, desegregation foot soldiers, Black Power activists, and womanist theologians.

The UFO enigma has been part of our culture since the 1940s and is building to a worldwide explosion of acceptance today. Now, as governments around the world open their files and records on internal UFO investigations, the US remains steadfast in its denial of interest in the UFO issue. As more of the world's population accepts the possibility of an extraterrestrial presence, the demand is building for disclosure from the United States.

In 1654, 23 Jewish families arrived in New Amsterdam (now New York) aboard a French privateer. They were the Sephardim, members of a proud orthodox sect that had served as royal advisors and honored professionals under Moorish rule in Spain and Portugal but were then exiled by intolerant monarchs. A small, closed, and intensely private community, the Sephardim soon established themselves as businessmen and financiers. They became powerful forces in society, with some, like banker Haym Salomon, even providing financial support to George Washington's army during the American Revolution.

In this magisterial volume Charles E. Curran surveys the historical development of Catholic moral theology in the United States from its 19th century roots to the present day. He begins by tracing the development of pre-Vatican II moral theology that, with the exception of social ethics, had the limited purpose of training future confessors to know what actions are sinful and the degree of sinfulness.

Affluence, autonomy, safety, and power. These are the central values of the American dream. But are they actually compatible with Jesus' command to love our neighbor as ourselves? In essays grouped around these four values, D. L. Mayfield asks us to pay attention to the ways they shape our own choices, and the ways those choices affect our neighbors. Where did these values come from? How have they failed those on the edges of our society? And how can we disentangle ourselves from our culture's headlong pursuit of these values and live faithful lives of service to God and our neighbors?