The First Prejudice
Subtitle: religious tolerance and intolerance in early America
By: edited by Chris Beneke and Christopher S. Grenda
Series: Early American studies
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Philadelphia; Oxford
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 401
ISBN-13: 9780812242706
Copyright date: 2011
Description: Spanning more than two centuries across colonial British America and the United States, this book offers an exploration of the early history of persecution and toleration. In many ways, religion was the United States' first prejudice, both an early source of bigotry and the object of the first sustained efforts to limit its effects. The twelve essays in this volume were composed by leading historians with an eye to the larger significance of religious tolerance and intolerance. Individual chapters examine the prosecution of religious crimes, the biblical sources of tolerance and intolerance, the British imperial context of toleration, the bounds of Native American spiritual independence, the nuances of anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism, the resilience of African American faiths, and the challenges confronted by skeptics and freethinkers. The book presents a revealing portrait of the rhetoric, regulations, and customs that shaped the relationships between people of different faiths in seventeenth and eighteenth century America. It relates changes in law and language to the lived experience of religious conflict and religious cooperation, highlighting the crucial ways in which they molded U.S. culture and politics. By incorporating a broad range of groups and religious differences in its accounts of tolerance and intolerance, the book opens a new vista on the understanding of America's long experience with diversity.
Table of contents: title: Faith, reason, and enlightenment : the cultural sources of toleration in early America / Christopher S. Grenda; title: Amalek and the rhetoric of extermination / John Corrigan; title: The episcopate, the British union, and the failure of religious settlement in colonial British America / Ned Landsman; title: Practicing toleration in Dutch New Netherland / Joyce D. Goodfriend; title: Heretics, blasphemers, and Sabbath breakers : the prosecution of religious crime in early America / Susan Juster; title: Persecuting Quakers? : liberty and toleration in early Pennsylvania / Andrew R. Murphy; title: Native freedom? : Indians and religious tolerance in early America / Richard W. Pointer; title: Slaves to intolerance : African American Christianity and religious freedom in early America / Jon Sensbach; title: Catholics, Protestants, and the clash of civilizations in early America / Owen Stanwood; title: Anti-Semitism, toleration, and appreciation : the changing relations of Jews and Gentiles in early America / William Pencak; title: The "catholic spirit prevailing in our country" : America's moderate religious revolution / Chris Benek; title: The boundaries of toleration and tolerance : religious infidelity in the early American republic / Christopher Grasso.