Antifundamentalism in modern America / David Harrington Watt.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Watt, David Harrington, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Religious fundamentalism--History.

Religious fundamentalism.

Religious fundamentalism--United States--History.

Religion and politics--United States.

Religion and politics.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (241 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Ithaca, New York : Cornell University Press, 2017.

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

David Harrington Watt's Antifundamentalism in Modern America gives us a pathbreaking account of the role that the fear of fundamentalism has played-and continues to play-in American culture. Fundamentalism has never been a neutral category of analysis, and Watt scrutinizes the various political purposes that the concept has been made to serve. In 1920, the conservative Baptist writer Curtis Lee Laws coined the word "fundamentalists." Watt examines the antifundamentalist polemics of Harry Emerson Fosdick, Talcott Parsons, Stanley Kramer, and Richard Hofstadter, which convinced many Americans that religious fundamentalists were almost by definition backward, intolerant, and anti-intellectual and that fundamentalism was a dangerous form of religion that had no legitimate place in the modern world. For almost fifty years, the concept of fundamentalism was linked almost exclusively to Protestant Christians. The overthrow of the Shah of Iran and the establishment of an Islamic republic led to a more elastic understanding of the nature of fundamentalism. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Americans became accustomed to using fundamentalism as a way of talking about Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists, as well as Christians. Many Americans came to see Protestant fundamentalism as an expression of a larger phenomenon that was wreaking havoc all over the world. Antifundamentalism in Modern America is the first book to provide an overview of the way that the fear of fundamentalism has shaped U.S. culture, and it will lead readers to rethink their understanding of what fundamentalism is and what it does.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Skeptics

2. Defenders

3. The First Fundamentalists

4. Invention

5. Ratification

6. The Dustbin of History

7. Reinvention

8. Zenith

Conclusion

Chronology of Events

Chronology of Interpretations

Notes

Select Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Previously issued in print: 2017.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781501708534

1501708538

9781501708541

1501708546

OCLC:

961388391