E-Book Overview
Denis Lacorne identifies two competing narratives defining the American identity. The first narrative, derived from the philosophy of the Enlightenment, is essentially secular. Associated with the Founding Fathers and reflected in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Federalist Papers, this line of reasoning is predicated on separating religion from politics to preserve political freedom from an overpowering church. Prominent thinkers such as Voltaire, Thomas Paine, and Jean-Nicolas D?meunier, who viewed the American project as a radical attempt to create a new regime free from religion and the weight of ancient history, embraced this American effort to establish a genuine "wall of separation" between church and state. The second narrative is based on the premise that religion is a fundamental part of the American identity and emphasizes the importance of the original settlement of America by New England Puritans. This alternative vision was elaborated by Whig politicians and Romantic historians in the first half of the nineteenth century. It is still shared by modern political scientists such as Samuel Huntington. These thinkers insist America possesses a core, stable "Creed" mixing Protestant and republican values. Lacorne outlines the role of religion in the making of these narratives and examines, against this backdrop, how key historians, philosophers, novelists, and intellectuals situate religion in American politics. (8/1/11)
E-Book Content
T o n y J u d t (1948–2010) was the Erich Maria Remarque Professor in European Studies at New York University and director of its Erich Maria Remarque Institute. His last book was The Memory Chalet.
praise for
religion in america “Denis Lacorne is the best European observer of American politics and culture I know. Extraordinarily knowledgeable and sympathetic, he sees through simple-minded myths about America and is attentive to connections we miss. Religion in America, which concerns the noncontradiction between Enlightenment and Protestantism in the American imagination, confirms what I’ve long suspected: that Lacorne understands us better than we understand ourselves.” —Mark Lilla, Columbia University, author of The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West
religion in america
D e n i s L a c o r n e is a senior research fellow with the CERI (Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Internationales) at Sciences Po, Paris. A frequent commentator on American politics in the French press and on French television, his books include With Us or Against Us: Studies in Global Anti-Americanism and Language, Nation, and State: Identity Politics in a Multilingual Age, both with Tony Judt.
A religion in america a political history
“Drawing upon Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America (1835) and attempting to avoid simplistic clichés of American religion, French political scientist Denis Lacorne brilliantly argues that religion has played an ongoing role in the American republic because it has blended Enlightenment skepticism, American pragmatism, and religious innovation and entrepreneurialism over the past two centuries. He cogently engages widespread misconceptions among French intellectuals and Europeans about the role of religion in American public life and points to the ironic and contradictory impulses within American and French political life. His book reads like a modern Tocqueville, and it is highly recommended!” —Gastón Espinosa, Claremont McKenna College, author of Religion and the American Presidency: George Washington to George W. Bush with Commentary and Primary Sources
Columbia University Press / New York
www.cup.columbia.edu
lacorne
Printed in the U.S.A.
jacket design by kathleen lynch/black kat design j a c k e t a r t w o r k : t h e l i b e r t y