Published in association with the British Association for American Studies.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Print version record.

Anyone who seeks to understand the dynamics of culture and politics in the United States must grapple with the importance of religion in its many diverse and contentious manifestations. With conservative evangelicals forming the base of the Republican Party, racial-ethnic communities often organised along religious lines, and social-political movements on the left including major religious components, many of the countrys key cultural-political debates are carried out through religious discourse. Thus it is misleading either to think of the US as a secular society in which religion is margina.

English.

Introduction; Mapping US Religion; Religion in American Studies and Cultural Studies; Strategies for Dealing with Religious Diversity; 1 Religion in North America Before the Twentieth Century; Native Americans Meet Europeans; From Red and White to Red, White, and Black; Key Players in European-American Religion During the Colonial Era; Expanding the Cast of Key Players; 2 Changes in the Religious Landscape in the Early Twentieth Century; New Key Players on the Landscape: Jews and Roman Catholics; Emergent Developments in the Protestant Mainstream; Three Final Groups, Plus Multiple Maps for Multiple Interactions of Our Key Players; 3 Religion and Social Conflict in the Early Twentieth Century; Religion, Wealth, and the Working Class; Religion and the Politics of Gender; Debates about War, Peace, and Foreign Relations; 4 Cultural Aspects of Religion in the Early Twentieth Century; Cultural Dimensions of Immigrant Religious Enclaves; Religion and Popular Culture; Battles for the Soul of Protestantism; 5 Shifts in the Religious Landscape From World War II to the Present; A Changing Map of Dazzling Religious Diversity; Collapse and Restructuring in the Old Protestant Establishment; Trends Among Other Key Players; 6 Religion and Evolving Social Conflicts from World War to the Present; Faces of African-American Religion and Politics; More on the Culture War; Thinking about the End of the World with Conservative Protestants; 7 Cultural Aspects of Religion from World War II to the Present; Creationism and the Emergence of a Postmodern Evangelicalism; Debates about Accepting Gay and Lesbian People; Religion in an Age of Consumerism; Faces of the Buddhist Sangha in America; Race and Religious Tradition in an Era of Cultural Hybridity; Mainstream Culture Warriors Respond to Rising Pluralism; Conclusion: Consensus, Pluralism, and Hegemony in US Religion; Index.