Search

This study focuses on the role of early African American Christianity in the formation of American egalitarian religion and politics. It also provides a new context for understanding how black Christianity and evangelism developed, spread, and interacted with transatlantic religious cultures of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Cedrick May looks at the work of a group of pivotal African American writers who helped set the stage for the popularization of African American evangelical texts and the introduction of black intellectualism into American political culture: Jupiter Hammon, Phillis Wheatley, John Marrant, Prince Hall, Richard Allen, and Maria Stewart. Religion gave these writers agency and credibility, says May, and they appropriated the language of Christianity to establish a common ground on which to speak about social and political rights. In the process, these writers spread the principles that enabled slaves and free blacks to form communities, a fundamental step in resisting oppression. Moreover, says May, this institution building was overtly political, leading to a liberal shift in mainstream Christianity and secular politics as black churches and the organizations they launched became central to local communities and increasingly influenced public welfare and policy. This important new study restores a sense of the complex challenges faced by early black intellectuals as they sought a path to freedom through Christianity.

Volume 7 of this superlative Texan Antholoy

This thought-provoking book invites you to contemplate an alternative reality-one in which violence has not shaped the course of human history despite millennia of warfare. What would the world be like if the many conflicts that have ravaged humanity had never occurred? What If There Was No War? explores the impact of violence on society, politics, culture, and technology via a temporal and spatial journey. The book examines the many trajectories of human civilization throughout history and into contemporary world politics, especially in the absence of war. What would have transpired regarding nations, economy, and international relations? In what ways have art, philosophy, and technology developed in the absence of violent conflict? This book does not seek to romanticize a utopian ideal or overlook the complexities of human nature; rather, it is a comprehensive and candid exploration of what may have transpired. Through historical analysis, cognitive exercises, and philosophical reflections, What If There Was No War? compels readers to scrutinize the trajectories we have selected as a species and interrogates whether a peaceful world is really attainable. Would humans have gained greater prosperity, cooperation, and sustainability without the tragedies of war? Or may other sorts of conflict have developed in its place, taking on new, maybe more subtle shapes? In this book, you'll explore the several alternative histories of a warless world and face the tough problem that has lasted throughout history: Can we honestly construct a world without war? Suppose you've ever thought about the hidden possibilities of history or attempted to comprehend the deeper meaning of our world's continuing challenges. In that scenario, this book presents a captivating and thought-provoking viewpoint on the one subject that has the capacity to transform all we know about the past. and our future.