In this vividly rendered narrative, Jenna Weissman Joselit situates the Ten Commandments within the fabric of American history. Her subjects range from the 1860 tale of the amateur who claimed to have discovered ancient holy stones inside a burial mound in Ohio to the San Francisco congregation of Sherith Israel, which commissioned a luminous piece of stained glass depicting Moses in Yosemite for its sanctuary; from the Kansas politician Charles Walter,...

Leaving behind the medieval monastary of Mariabronn at the urgings of his instructor, Narcissus, Goldmund embarks on a fantastic journey to recapture his past and discover his future.

Sifting through centuries of mythmaking, Reza Aslan sheds new light on one of history's most influential and enigmatic characters by examining Jesus through the lens of the tumultuous era in which he lived: first-century Palestine, an age awash in apocalyptic fervor. Scores of Jewish prophets, preachers, and would-be messiahs wandered through the Holy Land, bearing messages from God. This was the age of zealotry--a fervent nationalism that made resistance...

Five hundred years ago, an obscure monk challenged the authority of the pope with a radical new vision of what Christianity could be. The revolution he unwittingly set in motion has toppled governments, upended social norms, and transformed millions of people's understanding of their relationship with God. In this dazzling global history charting five centuries of innovation and change, Alec Ryrie makes the case that the world we live in was indelibly...

In this book, John Nelson reconstructs everyday Anglican religious practice and experience in Virginia from the end of the seventeenth century to the start of the American Revolution. Challenging previous characterizations of the colonial Anglican establishment as weak, he reveals the fundamental role the church played in the political, social, and economic as well as the spiritual lives of its parishioners. Drawing on extensive research in parish...

Salvation with a Smile situates Lakewood Church in the context of American religious history and illuminates how Joel Osteen has parlayed an understanding of American religious and political culture into vast popularity and success.

Parkland. Las Vegas. Dallas. Orlando. San Bernardino. Paris. Charleston. Sutherland Springs. Newtown. These cities are now known for the people who were shot and killed in them. More Americans have died from guns in the US in the last fifty years than in all the wars in American history. With less than 5% of the world's population, the people of the US own nearly half the world's guns. America also has the most annual gun deaths--homicide, suicide,...