Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith - Religion in American War and Diplomacy

Zusatztext 77574194 Informationen zum Autor Andrew Preston  teaches American history and international relations history at Cambridge University, where he is a fellow of Clare College. Before Cambridge, he taught history and international studies at Yale University. He has also taught at universities in Canada and Switzerland, and has been a fellow at the Cold War Studies Program at the London School of Economics. He is the author of The War Council: McGeorge Bundy, the NSC, and Vietnam . Klappentext Winner of the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction Finalist for the Cundhill Prize in History A richly detailed! profoundly engrossing story of how religion has influenced American foreign relations! told through the stories of the men and women-from presidents to preachers-who have plotted the country's course in the world. Ever since John Winthrop argued that the Puritans' new home would be "a city upon a hill!" Americans' role in the world has been shaped by their belief that God has something special in mind for them. But this is a story that historians have mostly ignored. Now! in the first authoritative work on the subject! Andrew Preston explores the major strains of religious fervor-liberal and conservative! pacifist and militant! internationalist and isolationist-that framed American thinking on international issues from the earliest colonial wars to the twenty-first century. He arrives at some startling conclusions! among them: Abraham Lincoln's use of religion in the Civil War became the model for subsequent wars of humanitarian intervention; nineteenth-century Protestant missionaries made up the first NGO to advance a global human rights agenda; religious liberty was the centerpiece of Franklin Roosevelt's strategy to bring the United States into World War II. From George Washington to George W. Bush! from the Puritans to the present! from the colonial wars to the Cold War! religion has been one of America's most powerful sources of ideas about the wider world. When! just days after 9/11! George W. Bush described America as "a prayerful nation! a nation that prays to an almighty God for protection and for peace!" or when Barack Obama spoke of balancing the "just war and the imperatives of a just peace" in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech! they were echoing four hundred years of religious rhetoric. Preston traces this echo back to its source. Sword of the Spirit! Shield of Faith is an unprecedented achievement: no one has yet attempted such a bold synthesis of American history. It is also a remarkable work of balance and fair-mindedness about one of the most fraught subjects in America. Introduction Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Fait h was written under the assumption that religion played an important role in shaping American perceptions of the world and in contributing to domestic debates on how the United States should engage with other nations. It is an exploration not of whether religion influenced U.S. foreign relations, but how. It is a logical assumption: few would argue that religion has not played a consistently important role in American life, for better or worse. This last qualifier—for better or worse—is important, for this book also operates under the assumption that religion is just like any other historical topic. It is not my desire, and certainly not my intention, to make a case either for or against a role for religion in public life. Readers will of course use the material in this book to support their own beliefs that religion is either a productive or a pernicious force in American foreign relations. Partisans on both sides of the acrimonious debate over religion’s place in the public square—and increasingly over the nature of religion itself—will find plenty of evidence to back up their competing claims. But such quarrels are not my concern. Religion provoke...

Product details

• Authors: Andrew Preston
• Publisher: Anchor Books USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 13.11.2012
• EAN: 9781400078585
• ISBN: 978-1-4000-7858-5
• No. of pages: 832
• Dimensions: 130 mm x 202 mm x 37 mm
• Subject: Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous