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4.0 

One Nation Under God

By Kevin M. Kruse
One Nation Under God by Kevin M. Kruse digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

The provocative and authoritative history of the origins of Christian America in the New Deal era

We're often told that the United States is, was, and always has been a Christian nation. But in One Nation Under God, historian Kevin M. Kruse reveals that the belief that America is fundamentally and formally Christian originated in the 1930s.

To fight the "slavery" of FDR's New Deal, businessmen enlisted religious activists in a campaign for "freedom under God" that culminated in the election of their ally Dwight Eisenhower in 1952. The new president revolutionized the role of religion in American politics. He inaugurated new traditions like the National Prayer Breakfast, as Congress added the phrase "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance and made "In God We Trust" the country's first official motto. Church membership soon soared to an all-time high of 69 percent. Americans across the religious and political spectrum agreed that their country was "one nation under God."

Provocative and authoritative, One Nation Under God reveals how an unholy alliance of money, religion, and politics created a false origin story that continues to define and divide American politics to this day.

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70 Reviews

4.0
Red Angry Face“A striking history of how the phrases ‘one nation under god’ and ‘in god we trust’ came to be de facto mottoes and reverential guidelines through the machinations of capitalists who abhorred the increase of government and the ideas of the New Deal. Kruse invites us to understand that this ‘ceremonial deism’ is not constitutionally based, rather it is Madison Avenue crafted. An excellent work that is diligently researched.”

About Kevin M. Kruse

Kevin M. Kruse is a professor of history at Princeton University and the author or coeditor of five books, including Fault Lines and the award-winning White Flight. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

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