Review by Choice Review
Jacoby (unaffiliated, Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism, 2004) brings Ingersoll out of the hidden dustbin of history to present him as one of the most fascinating of many characters in the Gilded Age US. The author ponders why Ingersoll often is overlooked in standard narratives of the era; perhaps his "freethinking" in the period in which he lived, lectured, and practiced law--a period characterized and dominated by barons such as John D. Rockefeller (who paraded his religion)--has received too much scholarly attention, diminishing the intellectual impact of many original thinkers outside the mainstream, including Ingersoll. Self-taught, Ingersoll in adulthood became the "most compelling orator of his era." He moved on to frequently address diverse groups, including those espousing religion (by wit and charm, failing to offend most). A supporter of progressive causes including women's rights (animal rights, too), even as he publically "attacked" many of religion's mythologies--Ingersoll was much admired, Jacoby insists. Ingersoll died in 1899 leaving mourners--believers and nonbelievers--to contemplate his life and his many causes. American social, cultural, and political historians will find this book enlightening and appealing. One might consider Frank Smith's Robert G. Ingersoll: A Life (1990) as a companion read. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. P. D. Travis Texas Woman's University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by New York Times Review
SUSAN JACOBY, whose previous books include "Freethinkers" and "The Age of American Unreason," begins "The Great Agnostic" by asking why some people famous in their own time become part of our national memory and others fade into oblivion. A case in point is Che orator Robert Green Ingersoll: a celebrity in his heyday at the end of the 19th century, he is almost utterly unknown today, even by those who would admire him if they knew more. The first reason for his obscurity is the same reason many actors who were well known before the age of film have been forgotten: Ingersoll's greatest fame came from his public speeches, and while the texts of these have been published, it was his performance of them that made him so beloved. In 19th-century America, speeches were a major form of entertainment. As a result, people were real connoisseurs of the craft, and a wide range of listeners thought Ingersoll was an extraordinary orator. In an age when flowery language and effusive emotion were commonly used to keep audiences rapt, Ingersoll was comparatively calm and plain-spoken, yet he was said to be riveting, drawing both tears and peals of laughter. The second reason he isn't remembered has to do with what was in those speeches, many of which denounced religion. He called himself agnostic, but whenever he was asked, he replied that for him there was no difference between agnosticism and atheism. He wrote and spoke about a number of topics - Shakespeare was a favorite - but his agnosticism was what most set him apart, attracting devoted followers and fervent detractors. There have been atheists and religious doubters throughout history, but the ones who remain famous after their deaths tend to have been equally famous for something else as well; otherwise, people most notable for their bravery in the face of religious conservatism have to be celebrated by a population equally brave, and that is often too much to ask. For Jacoby, prejudice against those who question religion is the "real reason" for his eclipse, far out-weighing the ephemeral nature of oratorical fame. To these explanations, Jacoby adds her suspicion that Ingersoll might have fared better had a rise in secularism, which he helped bring about, proved to be permanent. But it is wrong, she notes, to allow his stature to diminish as a result of the resurgence of religion that occurred after his death. "Intellectual history is a relay race, not a 100-yard dash," Jacoby writes, in a nice turn of phrase. Reporting on the irreligion of many of the country's founding figures, Ingersoll kept the ideals of secularism alive during his own era and passed them on to us. In particular, he championed the memory of Thomas Paine, whose rejection of religion had led to his being forgotten in Ingersoll's time, despite the considerable role Paine played in turning the American colonies toward revolution. It may be hoped that Jacoby's book does as much for Ingersoll as Ingersoll did for Paine. Jacoby shows how Ingersoll's fight against religion connected to his vision of a good society. During his time, religious writers commonly supported a harsh "biblical" approach to disciplining children. Ingersoll told his audiences that he had seen people who acted as though when Jesus said, "'Suffer the little children to come unto me, for such is the kingdom of heaven,' he had a rawhide under his mantle and made that remark simply to get the children within striking distance." He favored quips like this, and newspapers reported them with the bracketed commentary of "[Laughter]" and "[Great Laughter]." Employing similar indictments, Ingersoll campaigned passionately for women's rights, against racism and against the death penalty. When science ran afoul of humanitarian ideals, he fought against it too. In an appendix, Jacoby includes a short, vivid speech of Ingersoll's against vivisection, which he likened to "the Inquisition - the hell - of science." Jacoby's understanding of irreligion in American history is a bit idiosyncratic. She several times states that there are two branches of American secularism: one extending from the humanism and egalitarianism of Paine and the other from the cutthroat individualism of the social Darwinists and Ayn Rand. Jacoby does not lay out a case for this claim, and readers may protest that Rand and her kind aren't much more than outliers among atheists. Furthermore, Jacoby writes, in today's "new atheism," people who identify as "skeptics" are often libertarian conservatives. She doesn't make a case for this either, and win my experience (in person, in print and online), selfproclaimed skeptics come together when questioning paranormal and pseudoscientific claims - there's little political consensus, and what consensus there is leans more to the liberal left. IT is also worth noting that Jacoby writes entirely from the side of the freethought community, which believers may dislike. This is her right - I prefer a biography with a distinct point of view - but she tells us almost nothing negative about Ingersoll, other than hinting that "no one, of course, is ever completely free of contemporary received opinion." These issues aside, Jacoby's goal of elucidating the life and work of Robert Ingersoll is admirably accomplished. She offers a host of well-chosen quotations from his work, and she deftly displays the effect he had on others. For instance: after a young Eugene V. Debs heard Ingersoll talk. Debs accompanied him to the train station and then - just so he could continue the conversation - bought himself a ticket and rode all the way from Terre Haute to Cincinnati. Readers today may well find Ingersoll's company equally entrancing. Jennifer Michael Hecht is the author of "Doubt: A History" and the forthcoming "Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [March 10, 2013]
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
A rare all-American atheist is celebrated in this provocative if hagiographic sketch. Journalist and atheist intellectual Jacoby (Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism) recaps the Gilded Age career of Robert Green Ingersoll, an influential lawyer and liberal Republican orator dubbed "The Great Agnostic" for his wildly popular lectures on religion, evolution, and other hot-button issues. Her brisk, lucid study makes him an apostle of irreligion in the tradition of Thomas Paine: a minister's son steeped in Christian doctrine, Ingersoll used folksy humor, clear expositions, and conversational language to extol science and condemn religious cant. (He lampooned the notion of intelligent design by touting cancer as the capstone of God's plan.) She also styles him a paragon of progressive politics and culture-she appends his luminous eulogy for Walt Whitman-and a near-saintly exemplar of secular humanism, complete with deathbed scene bathed in the joyful denial of a world to come. The author sets her frankly laudatory portrait-her afterword enjoins latter-day "'New' Atheists" to honor Ingersoll's memory-in an insightful analysis of the late Victorian clash between a scientific, Darwinian worldview and a fundamentalist backlash. Jacoby is hardly neutral in that culture war, but her stimulating study shows that rationalist skepticism is as authentic and deep-seated as America's fabled religiosity. Photos. Agent: Georges Borchardt. (Jan. 8) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Robert Green Ingersoll was one of the most famous orators and prominent nonbelievers in the United States during the Gilded Age. Frequently cutting across political and social boundaries, Ingersoll won admiration even among his enemies with his charm, wit, and rhetorical ability. Today his legacy is largely forgotten, overlooked even in the pantheon of American secularism. Jacoby (Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism) aims to restore Ingersoll to a more prominent place in American intellectual history as an important classical liberal and humanistic defender of the liberty of conscience in the tradition of Thomas Paine. In her enthusiastic (at times approaching hagiographic) celebration of Ingersoll's life and thought, Jacoby expands on the story of one of the most fascinating characters she covered in Freethinkers. VERDICT Although there are a handful of other biographies on Ingersoll, few have been written in recent years and none addresses his contemporary relevance as ably as this one. Readers interested in the history of American secularism and nonbelievers hungry to expand their repertoire beyond the New Atheists will enjoy this book.-Brian Sullivan, Alfred Univ. Lib., NY (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Veteran journalist Jacoby (Never Say Die: The Myth and Marketing of the New Old Age, 2011, etc.) pens less a biography than a series of sympathetic essays on the ideas of Robert Ingersoll (18331899), a Gilded-Age media superstar whose speeches entertained vast audiences even of those who disagreed with his agnosticism. Enthusiastic followers included Mark Twain, Andrew Carnegie, Eugene Debs, Thomas Edison, Clarence Darrow and W.C. Fields, yet he has largely vanished from history. At the same time, religion--in America uniquely among developed nations--remains almost universally respected and politically influential if sometimes distressingly anti-intellectual. Largely self-educated, Ingersoll passed the Illinois bar at age 21, rising in Republican state politics to become attorney general in 1867. Despite the atheism that put elective office out of reach, his brilliant oratory kept him influential in the party, whose deference to conservative Christian beliefs did not appear for another century. While Ingersoll's atheism filled auditoriums and provoked outraged sermons and editorials, many public stances were far ahead of his time. He denounced racism, discrimination against blacks and anti-immigration laws. He spoke out for the equality of women--not merely for the vote which preoccupied activists at the time--but for birth control and equality in marriage, education and jobs: positions no man and few women of his generation advocated. Nineteenth-century unbelievers tended toward pseudo-scientific social Darwinism, but not Ingersoll, who supported social reforms, free public education and workers' rights. More earnest than truculent, Jacoby writes for a readership of freethinkers, but believers who stumble upon the book will find it hard to deny that, irreligion aside, Ingersoll was a thoroughly admirable figure.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
