Synopses & Reviews
The first comparative history of one of the most dynamic popular religious movements in recent times, Evangelicalism offers a uniquely comprehensive survey of this complex phenomenon from its emergence in the mid-eighteenth century to the present. International in scope, the book includes essays by leading American, Canadian, English, Irish, Scottish, and Australian scholars and compares developments in every major region in the English-speaking world. The contributors examine the many ways that evangelicalism has been shaped by its popular nature, and explore the international networks of communication that have given it much of its distinctive character, from trans-Atlantic publishing networks in the eighteenth century to mass-marketing campaigns in the twentieth, and covering a wide range of other influences and trends, including Methodism, the legacy of George Whitefield, the American Civil War, anti-Catholicism, religious and civil revolution, and Pentecostalism. Based on path-breaking scholarship, this book is vital to students of religion who wish to grasp the breadth and complexity of evangelicalism as a social and political force as well as an irreducibly religious phenomenon.
Review
"It breathes both a sense of mature scholarship and an anticipation of new findings, new perspectives, waiting in the wings."--David Lyon,
Studies in ReligionTable of Contents
I: Origins
"Methodism and the Origins of English Speaking Evangelicalism", John Walsh
"Eighteenth-Century Publishing Networks in the First Years of Trans-Atlantic Evangelicalism", Susan O'Brien,
"George Whitfield in Three Countries", Harry S. Stout
"Time, Celebration, and the Christian Year in Eighteenth Century Evangelicalism", Leigh E. Schmidt
II. The Revolutionary Era
"Revolution and the Rise of Evangelical Social Influence in North Atlantic Societies", Mark Noll
"A Total Revolution in Religious and Civil Government: The Maritimes, New England, and the Evolving Evangeliclism Ethos 1776-1812", George A. Rawlyk
Evangelicalism in English and Irish Society 1780-1840", David Hempton
III. Nineteenth-Century Evangelical Cultures
Anti-Catholicism and Evangelical Identity in Britain and the United States 1830-1860", John Wolfe
"Evangelicals, Politics, and the Coming of the American Civil War: A Trans-Atlantic Perspective", Richard Carwardine
"The Empire of Evangelicalism: Varieties of Common Sense in Scotland, Canada, and the United States", Michael Gauvreau
"The Double Vision: Evangelical Piety as Derivative and Indigenous in Victorian English Canada", Marguerite Van Die
IV. Regions
"Northern and Southern Varieties of American Evangelicalism", Samuel S. Hill
The American and British Contributions to Evangelicalism in Australia", Stuart Piggin
"The Evangelical Revival, The Missionary Movement, and Africa", Andrew Walls, University of Edinburgh
V. The Twentieth Century
"Fundamentalism and the Varieties of North Atlantic Evangelicalism", Ian S. Rennie
"Trans-Atlantic Currents in North Atlantic Pentecostelism", Edith L. Blumhofer
"Evangelicalism in its Settings: The British and American Movements Since 1940", David Bebbington
On Being Evangelical: Some Theological Differences and Similarities", David Wells
Editors' Afterword: "The Generations of Scholarship"