Atheists in American Politics

Meagher manages to pack an evocative outline of 150 years of American atheism into 150 pages, and Atheists in American Politics is an invaluable addition to any introduction to the history of American secularism. * Journal of Church and State *
Each chapter of Atheists in American Politics provides a clear introduction to critical moments throughout the history of atheist organizing. Meagher is successful in tying together different threads of political struggle, a thematic strength due to his attention to familiar social movement territories such as resources and effectiveness. . . . His conceptual framework into the analysis, his attention to detail and the subsequent analysis of contemporary atheist activism advances our understanding of crucial moments in the maturation of the American atheist movement. Overall, this is a fascinating book which should find an audience among scholars engaged with social movement approaches to both religion and nonreligion. * Mobilization *
Richard Meagher shines an illuminating light on the persistence of a current of atheism in American political thought, a current we usually ignore in this hyper-religious nation. -- Frances Fox Piven, Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology, CUNY
This is a great work on the past, present, and future of atheist organizing and politics in the U.S. It does a terrific job of tracing how this diffuse movement has, on one hand, gained a good deal of political and social capital in the last two decades, but, on the other hand, has been dogged by consistent problems of infighting and, until very recently, lack of resources. -- Richard Cimino, coauthor of Atheist Awakening: Secular Activism and Community in America
In clear and direct prose, Meagher takes the reader through significant developments in the history of “freethinking” in the United States, analyzing the opportunities and constraints faced by atheists as their movement waxed, waned and grew again over the course of the 20th century and into the 21st.  His attention to the movement’s leading publications, from magazines to best sellers to the blogosphere, as well as the political context in which they circulate, enables Meagher to account for the shifting identities and new political orientations created by atheist communities in the United States. This volume should serve as an essential primer for all audiences—students as well as the general public—who are interested in not just how and why the New Atheist movement has grown in recent years, but how and why social movements in general grow and gain traction.​ -- Penny Lewis, CUNY