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Debates over censorship often become debates over the influence of culture on society's morals and the perceived need to protect women and children. Purifying America explores the widespread middle-class advocacy of censorship as a popular reform around the turn of the century and provides a historical perspective on contemporary debates over censorship, morality, and pornography that continue to divide women.
Publisher Fact Sheet A history of cremation in America.
The New England Watch and Ward Society provides a new window into the history of American Protestantism during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By suppressing obscene literature, gambling, and prostitution, the moral reform organization embodied Protestant efforts to shape public morality in an increasing intellectually and culturally diverse society.
From the earliest days of public outrage over "indecent" nickelodeon shows, Americans have worried about the power of the movies. The eleven essays in this book examine nearly a century of struggle over cinematic representations of sex, crime, violence, religion, race, and ethnicity, revealing that the effort to regulate the screen has reflected deep social and cultural schisms. In addition to the editor, contributors include Daniel Czitrom, Marybeth Hamilton, Garth Jowett, Charles Lyons, Richard Maltby, Charles Musser, Alison M. Parker, Charlene Regester, Ruth Vasey, and Stephen Vaughn. Together they make it clear that censoring the movies is more than just a reflex against "indecency," however defined. Whether censorship protects the vulnerable or suppresses the creative, it is part of a broader culture war that breaks out recurrently as Americans try to come to terms with the market, the state, and the plural society in which they live.
Does heaven exist? If so, what is it like? And how does one get in? Throughout history, painters, poets, philosophers, pastors, and many ordinary people have pondered these questions. Perhaps no other topic captures the popular imagination quite like heaven. Gary Scott Smith examines how Americans from the Puritans to the present have imagined heaven. He argues that whether Americans have perceived heaven as reality or fantasy, as God's home or a human invention, as a source of inspiration and comfort or an opiate that distracts from earthly life, or as a place of worship or a perpetual playground has varied largely according to the spirit of the age. In the colonial era, conceptions of heaven focused primarily on the glory of God. For the Victorians, heaven was a warm, comfortable home where people would live forever with their family and friends. Today, heaven is often less distinctively Christian and more of a celestial entertainment center or a paradise where everyone can reach his full potential. Drawing on an astounding array of sources, including works of art, music, sociology, psychology, folklore, liturgy, sermons, poetry, fiction, jokes, and devotional books, Smith paints a sweeping, provocative portrait of what Americans-from Jonathan Edwards to Mitch Albom-have thought about heaven.
"Compelling, provocative, and learned. This book is a stunning and sophisticated reevaluation of the American empire. Hopkins tells an old story in a truly new way--American history will never be the same again."--Jeremi Suri, author of The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America's Highest Office.Office.
Scholarship on the role of religion in American public life has taken on a new urgency in the increasingly contentious wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001. This volume brings together an impressive group of scholars to build on past work and broaden the scope of this crucial inquiry in two respects: by exploring aspects of the religion-politics nexus in the United States that have been neglected in the past, and by examining traditional questions concerning the religious tincture of American political discourse in provocative new ways. Essays include examinations of religious rhetoric in American political and cultural discourse after September 11th, the impact of religious ideas on environmental ethics, religion and American law beyond the First Amendment, religious responses to questions of gay and lesbian rights, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and issues of free speech and public space in Utah, and the role of religious institutions and ideas on the political priorities of African-American and Latino communities. In addition, Religion, Politics, and American Identity includes introductory and concluding essays by leading scholars in the field of religion and politics that assess present and future directions for study.
In the current political climate it is impossible not to speculate about the correlation between American national identity and religious beliefs. Sacred Discourse and American Nationality analyzes the role of religious rhetoric and politics. Eldon J. Eisenach explores this relationship, along with the interrelationship of political theory, political ideology, and political change in the story of American political life. By addressing “sacred stories” and American Progressivism, Sacred Discourseand American Nationality provides historical and current views on American national identity. This is the perfect book for scholars and students interested in American political development.
What American Government Does represents a major contribution to the scholarly debate on the nature of the American state and the exercise of power in America.
During the nineteenth century, the American temperance movement underwent a visible, gendered shift in its leadership as it evolved from a male-led movement to one dominated by the women. However, this transition of leadership masked the complexity and diversity of the temperance movement. Through an examination of the two icons of the movement -- the self-made man and the crusading woman -- Fletcher demonstrates the evolving meaning and context of temperance and gender. Temperance becomes a story of how the debate on racial and gender equality became submerged in service to a corporate, political enterprise and how men’s and women’s identities and functions were reconfigured in relationship to each other and within this shifting political and cultural landscape.