Yale University Press
The Great Awakening: The Roots of Evangelical Christianity in Colonial America
Key Metrics
- Thomas S Kidd
- Yale University Press
- Paperback
- 9780300158465
- 9.1 X 6.1 X 1.2 inches
- 1 pounds
- Religion > Christian Ministry - Evangelism
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
A groundbreaking historical treatment of the First Great Awakening and its contribution to the American ideal of equality for all people
In the mid-eighteenth century, Americans experienced an outbreak of religious revivals that shook colonial society. This book provides a definitive view of these revivals, now known as the First Great Awakening, and their dramatic effects on American culture. Historian Thomas S. Kidd tells the absorbing story of early American evangelical Christianity through the lives of seminal figures like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield as well as many previously unknown preachers, prophets, and penitents. The Great Awakening helped create the evangelical movement, which heavily emphasized the individual's experience of salvation and the Holy Spirit's work in revivals. By giving many evangelicals radical notions of the spiritual equality of all people, the revivals helped breed the democratic style that would come to characterize the American republic. Kidd carefully separates the positions of moderate supporters of the revivals from those of radical supporters, and he delineates the objections of those who completely deplored the revivals and their wildly egalitarian consequences. The battles among these three camps, the author shows, transformed colonial America and ultimately defined the nature of the evangelical movement.
Author Bio
Thomas S Kidd is a distinguished Professor of History, and teaches at Baylor University James Vardaman Endowed Professor of History and Associate Director, Institute for Studies of Religion.
Recent publications include
- Who Is an Evangelical?: The History of a Movement in Crisis (Yale University Press, 2019)
- Benjamin Franklin: The Religious Life of a Founding Father (Yale University Press, 2017)
- American Colonial History: Clashing Cultures and Faiths (Yale University Press, 2016)
- Baptists in America: A History, with Barry Hankins (Oxford University Press, 2015)
- Education
Ph.D., University of Notre Dame, 2001
- Research Interests
"My research interests are in eighteenth-century North America, particularly the history of evangelicalism."
Videos
Community reviews
Write a ReviewNo Community reviews