I was a correspondent in Vietnam in 1966, 1971, 1973, and 1974. I worked for The New Yorker on the last three dates, and I have been back several times since the end of the war. My book, Fire in Lake won the Pulitzer Prize, the Bancroft Prize for history, and the National Book Award, among other prizes.
I wrote...
The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America
By
Frances FitzGerald
What is my book about?
The evangelical movement began in the revivals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, known in America as the Great Awakenings. A populist rebellion against the established churches, it became the dominant religious force in the country. During the nineteenth century white evangelicals split apart, first North versus South, and then, modernist versus fundamentalist. After World War II, Billy Graham attracted enormous crowds and tried to gather all Protestants under his big tent, but the civil rights movement and the social revolution of the sixties drove them apart again. By the 1980s Jerry Falwell and other southern televangelists, such as Pat Robertson, had formed the Christian right. Protesting abortion and gay rights, they led the South into the Republican Party, and for thirty-five years they were the sole voice of evangelicals to be heard nationally. Eventually, a younger generation proposed a broader agenda of issues, such as climate change, gender equality, and immigration reform.
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The Books I Picked & Why
Listen America!
By
Jerry Falwell
Why this book?
Falwell was the first in US history to attempt to organize white evangelicals into a voting group, and this is his manifesto. It’s a must-read because he introduces all the themes of the movement ever since.
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The Book of Jerry Falwell: Fundamentalist Language and Politics
By
Susan Friend Harding
Why this book?
An analysis of Falwell’s theological rhetoric and the changes he made in it to persuade fundamentalists and other evangelicals to go into politics that most had considered taboo. A fascinating book by a great anthropologist.
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Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right
By
Lisa McGirr
Why this book?
A marvelous account of how the Christian right came to power in Orange County, California, one of their first victories. McGirr, who lives in Orange County, is also a scholar from Princeton.
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The South and the North in American Religion
By
Samuel S. Hill
Why this book?
Strangely, very few books about the Christian right explain the differences between southern and northern evangelicals. Hill’s book is an eye-opener. It links theology directly to politics. A historian, Hill is a wonderful writer.
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God's Last and Only Hope: The Fragmentation of the Southern Baptist Convention
By
Bill J. Leonard
Why this book?
A liberal Southern Baptist, Leonard describes the fundamentalist takeover of the largest Protestant denomination. The take over accompanied the South’s transformation into a Republican stronghold and made the Christian right a serious force in American politics. Leonard is one of the best-known historians of the Convention and of contemporary religion in the South.