Review by New York Times Review
GODLESS CITIZENS IN A GODLY REPUBLIC By R. Laurence Moore and Isaac Kramnick. (Norton, $26.95.) How have America's laws, going back to the colonial era and into our times, dealt with atheism, with citizens of a religiously inflected country who didn't believe in God? The answers are in this alternative history of the country, focused on the nonbelievers. MY MOTHER, BARACK OBAMA, DONALD TRUMP, AND THE LAST STAND OF THE angry white man By Kevin Powell. (Atria Books, $26.) A combination of memoir and social criticism, Powell's book takes a look at sexual violence, poverty and race while also telling an intimate story of his Southern upbringing by a single mother, the penguin book of hell Edited by Scott G. Bruce. (Penguin, paper, $17.) For when everyday life has got you down, dip into over three thousand years' worth of depictions of a fiery, tortuous afterlife of eternal punishment. From the Bible through Dante and up to Treblinka and Guantanamo Bay, here is a rich source for nightmares. Beethoven's tenth By Richard Kluger. (Rare Bird, $26.95.) Kluger, a Pulitzer winner for his history of the cigarette industry, turns to fiction for the seventh time, producing a historical tale about Beethoven and a 10th symphony he never completed, so much life left over By Louis de Bernieres. (Pantheon, $26.95.) From the author of "Corelli's Mandolin" comes a story about love struggling to survive after war, as Daniel, a fighter pilot and Rosie, an army nurse, hold onto their marriage once the guns have stopped blazing. "Before a recent vacation my sister, the most voracious reader I know, sent me Ian McGuire's the north water. I've always loved the sea and tales that are set on it. 'In addition to its many linguistic splendors, there is a particularly fetching bear,' my sister's inscription read. At its most basic level, the book is about a disgraced military surgeon's turn on a whaling vessel under the command of a cursed captain. But as one who covers the tectonic shifts in information technology that are reordering the world, I found that the book also speaks unexpectedly to our own shambolic times. McGuire sets his novel at the twilight of the whaling industry and the dawn of the Oil Age. He writes as someone who knows that it's in such moments of turbulence, with so much to gain and so much to lose, that humankind's darker instincts emerge - its vanity and greed. As one of the book's only moral characters says, 'We build a great bonfire to warm ourselves and then complain that the flames are too hot and fierce, that we are blinded by the smoke.' " - JIM RUTENBERG, MEDIA COLUMNIST, ON WHAT HE'S READING.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [September 16, 2018]
Review by Booklist Review
In laying the groundwork for this history of American atheism, Moore and Kramnick explain that England's 1689 Act of Toleration wasn't based on open-mindedness but rather on the fact that it is sometimes better to put up with stubborn adversaries than to keep quarreling. Another perhaps unexpected fact: America's first advocate for separating church and state was colonial minister Roger Williams, who was far ahead of his time when he argued that heathens could govern as well as Christians. Thomas Paine set American resistance to religion off on an explosive start with the career-ending publication of The Age of Reason, in 1794. The strident condemnation he suffered reveals the bravery and commitment of outspoken nineteenth-century atheists. Even archconservative Robert Ingersoll, a lawyer and superstar orator, was denied the political ascendance so many envisioned for him because he was an atheist. The authors trace contemporary America's distaste for atheism back to three beliefs: good morals require devoutness; atheism is unpatriotic; atheists are cultural elitists. This compact and thorough work is a perfect introduction to atheism in America.--Dane Carr Copyright 2018 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
From the pages of state constitutions to the seats of Congress, Moore and Kramnick (The Godless Constitution: The Case Against Religious Correctness) search for places for the godless in American politics and find few. Beginning with the country's roots in England, with its official state church, the United States' protection of religious liberties excludes one group: nontheists and their nonbelief in a religion or deity. The authors explain that 18th- and 19th-century Americans associated morality with religion, so eschewing one was considered a rejection of the other. The tensions of the Cold War reinforced this historical bias, with rhetoric tying communism to atheism and implying a corresponding relationship between belief and patriotism. The concept of the dangerous, un-American-or worse, anti-American-atheist paved the way for the addition of "Under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954 and "In God We Trust" to America's currency in 1957, and constrained nontheists' chances at public office and judicial seats. Synopses of pivotal Supreme Court cases demonstrate how atheists, agnostics, humanists, secularists, and nontheists are frequently cast as an amoral minority. Through cautious and sensitive comparisons between nontheists and other marginalized groups, the authors present the marginalization of nontheists as an equal rights issue. This accessible and sincere book usefully makes explicit often-unspoken currents in American political life. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Emeritus professors Kramnick and Moore (government, Cornell Univ.; The Godless Constitution) here shed light upon the growing tension between the increasing number of Americans with no religious affiliation (nearly 25 percent of adults, and an even greater percentage of millennials) and the historic stigmatization of nonbelievers as second-class citizens. The authors argue that previous reasons used for denouncing the irreligious simply do not make sense anymore and need to be challenged in the name of religious liberty. The first half of the book provides a historical overview of subjects such as the ostracism of Thomas Paine, the frequent omission of the irreligious background of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and attempts to create a secular alternative to religion by Jane Addams and others. The second half focuses on 20th-century issues such as the Pledge of Allegiance, state constitutions, and key court cases. The work concludes with a look at the recent "Atheist Awakening" and the various political, legal, and promotional strategies that have been attempted. VERDICT This work provides important historical insights into a contentious contemporary issue. Highly recommended for readers interested in history, law, and political science, as well as those seeking positive approaches to expanding religious liberty.-Brian Sullivan, Alfred Univ. Lib., NY © Copyright 2018. 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
A survey of the social and political status of atheists in 21st-century America.As Moore (Emeritus, American Studies and History/Cornell Univ.) and Kramnick (Emeritus, Government/Cornell Univ.), who co-authored The Godless Constitution: A Moral Defense of the Secular State, 2005, etc., define it, atheism sweeps wide and includes deists, agnostics, and secular humanists, comprising perhaps 20 percent of the U.S. population. The authors demonstrate at length that atheists in Americaa country whose colonies were founded largely along religious lineshave historically suffered not just public scorn, but also prosecutions for blasphemy and such legal impediments as being denied the right to testify in court or to serve in public office. They provide concise but thorough summaries of judicial arguments and opinions that have justified striking down the most overtly discriminatory laws but leave in place less intrusive practices like prayer at public events. The authors further assert that private opinions disfavoring atheism nevertheless remain influential and that large majorities assume that "to be irreligious is to be 'un-American,' " an attitude actively encouraged during the Cold War. Various organizations of the current supposed "Atheist Awakening" are intent on remedying that through advertising, political activism, and largely unsuccessful legal assaults on remaining vestiges of religious observance and expression in government. Moore and Kramnick map the edges of conflict over the uneasy balance between atheists' rights not to be coerced into insincere professions of belief and believers' rights to express a conviction that religion is a fundamental bedrock of civil society. While supportive of the atheists' cause, their work is not as polemical as that of some of their colleagues; they are content to set out the issues atheist activists are now pressing. Some of these will likely strike readers as frivolous or as quixotic attempts to drive religion entirely from the public square, something no American government at any level has ever committed to doing.An impassioned review of the demands of a little-considered minority. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
