Religion in the Oval Office
The Religious Lives of American Presidents
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Oxford University Press Inc
Published:16th Apr '15
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
In Faith and the Presidency, Gary Scott Smith offered comprehensive, even-handed examinations of the role of religion in the lives, politics, and policies of eleven US presidents. In this book he takes on eleven more chief executives, drawing on a wide range of sources, and paying close attention to historical context and America's shifting social and moral values. Smith scrutinizes the convictions, use of religious rhetoric, and character of these eleven presidents by examining their lives, beliefs, policies, elections, and relationships of some of the nation's more colorful, charismatic, and complex leaders: John Adams, James Madison, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, William McKinley, Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. Religious commitments, Smith shows, strongly affected policy, from John Quincy Adams' treatment of native Americans and diplomacy, to William McKinley's decision to declare war against Spain in 1898 and take control of the Philippines, to Herbert Hoover's quest to reform prisons and defend civil liberties, to Harry Truman's approach to the Cold War and decision to recognize Israel, to Bill Clinton's promotion of religious liberty and reform of welfare, to Barack Obama's policies on poverty and gay rights. This volume will offer an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the presidency and the role of religion in politics.
The author uses sources with great care; he is careful to consult not only what presidents said for public consumption but also their private musings and the observations of colleagues and critics alike. The result is a very sturdy, benchmark sort of work [..] a careful and comprehensive treatment, one that should serve reliably on the reference shelf for a very long time. * Joel A. Carpenter, Calvin College, Journal of Ecclesiastical History *
Smith's research is exemplary and extensive, a model of his thoroughness in both primary and secondary sources... [His] excellent reference volume thus will find an ample and immediate audience among students and scholars, even interested browsers. * H. Larry Ingle, Quaker Studies *
Wonderfully informed...one could do far worse than approach his text as an alternative biographical portrait of certain chief executives. But he does such a fantastic job of explicating the Presidents' career trajectories by means of their religious convictions that the book is in fact far more than this. * Journal of American Studies *
At a time when presses (and readers) groan under the weight of panicky punditry on religion and the presidency, it is a welcome relief to possess Smith's well-researched, balanced and fair-minded study of a perennially interesting topic. * Christian Century *
This brief review only scratches the surface of Smith's meticulously crafted tome, one that will likely become a standard reference work on the subject. * Journal of American History *
A magisterial work-exhaustively researched, comprehensive in scope, and pitch-perfect in its critical analysis... [T]his book will be the standard by which future volumes on religion and the U.S. presidency should be judged. * Journal of Law and Religion *
Smith draws on extensive archival research to describe how faith helped shape presidential character, political philosophy and the interplay between beliefs and policies. What resounds on page after fascinating page is that, despite all the handwringing over the role of religion in American public life, in reality we've known very little about the steadfast beliefs of our past presidents. * Pittsburgh Post-Gazette *
... this book offers important insights on American religiosity and the presidency. * Peter J. Kastor, Journal of Church and State *
ISBN: 9780199391394
Dimensions: 241mm x 160mm x 48mm
Weight: 953g
664 pages