Category Archives: Books
Church, Commerce, Creation – A Conversation with Mark Stoll
Mark Stoll is Professor of History at Texas Tech University. He is the author of Protestantism, Capitalism, and Nature in America; Inherit the Holy Mountain: Religion and the Rise of American Environmentalism; and Profit: An Environmental History. Each book explores … Continue reading
Recommended Reading – Growth & Degrowth
Over the course of 2023 my interest in climate advocacy has carried me deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole of climate change causes, which turn out to be the same forces driving a whole host of other ecological problems, … Continue reading
The Year in Reading, 2023 – Abolitionism & Transcendentalism
In 2023 I read a bunch of books on slavery, Abolitionism, Transcendentalism, the major figures and currents of each, and the ties that bound them to one another. The reading list is included here, along with some reflections on the … Continue reading
Communicating Climate Change
David Wallace-Wells is editor-at-large for New York Magazine, as well as a contributor at the New York Times. His 2017 article, “The Uninhabitable Earth,” later expanded into a 2019 book of the same title, sparked a heated discussion within the … Continue reading
Freedom As and Against Democracy
Annelien de Dijn is Professor of Modern Political History at Utrecht University. Paul E. Johnson is Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Pittsburgh. Stephanie A. Martin is the Frank and Bethine Church Endowed Chair of Public Affairs at … Continue reading
American Individuals – A Conversation with Alex Zakaras
Alex Zakaras is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Vermont. In his new book, The Roots of American Individualism: Political Myth in the Age of Jackson, he returns to the early nineteenth century to trace the mythology … Continue reading
Book Bans & Apple Pie
Since 2021, American public school boards have been targeted by a coordinated campaign intent on revising curricula, altering policies, and banning books. Especially after Glenn Youngkin’s surprise victory in the Virginia Governor’s race that fall, the rhetorical power of child- … Continue reading
The Year in Reading, 2022 – Revolution to Civil War
In 2022 I read a bunch of books on American history from the Revolutionary War to the Civil War, spanning the period that Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. famously termed “the Age of Jackson.” The reading list is included here, along with … Continue reading
Christian Dialectic – A Conversation with David A. Hollinger
David A. Hollinger is the Preston Hotchkis Professor of History Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. In his new book, Christianity’s American Fate: How Religion Became More Conservative and Society More Secular, he recounts the long-running, dialectical relationship between … Continue reading
How We Got Here – A Conversation with Bill McKibben
Bill McKibben is the Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College. He is a contributor to The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, and the New York Review of Books, and author of 20 books of his own. His latest, … Continue reading
White Christian Nation – A Conversation with Philip S. Gorski
Philip S. Gorski is Professor and Chair of Sociology at Yale University. His latest book, co-authored with Samuel L. Perry, is The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to Democracy. It defines and diagnoses the ideological … Continue reading
Anti-Christians – A Conversation with Obery M. Hendricks
Obery M. Hendricks, Jr. is Visiting Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary and Adjunct Professor of Religion and African American Studies at Columbia University. His new book, Christians Against Christianity: How Right-Wing Evangelicals Are Destroying Our Nation and … Continue reading
Church / State – A Conversation with Steven K. Green
Steven K. Green is the Fred H. Paulus Professor of Law and Affiliated Professor of History and Religious Studies at Willamette University, a position he accepted after serving for ten years as legal director and special counsel for Americans United … Continue reading
Hijacking History – A Conversation with Kathleen Wellman
Kathleen Wellman is the Dedman Family Distinguished Professor of History and Altshuler Distinguished Teaching Professor at Southern Methodist University. In her new book, Hijacking History: How the Christian Right Teaches History and Why it Matters, she examines a series of … Continue reading