This text uncovers the prevailing religious sensibility at the center of early America's most popular form of print: the almanac. Employing a wealth of archival material, T.J. Tomlin reveals the pan-Protestant sensibility distributed through the almanacs' pages between 1730 and 1820, finding that almanacs played an unparalleled role in reinforcing British North America's 'shared religious culture.'

An annual friend -- Almanacs -- Astrology -- The liturgy of popular culture -- Death -- Authority -- Religion -- Non-Protestants -- Catholics -- Others.

A Divinity for All Persuasions uncovers the prevailing religious sensibility at the center of early America's most popular form of print: the almanac. Employing a wealth of archival material, T.J. Tomlin reveals the pan-Protestant sensibility distributed through the almanacs' pages between 1730 and 1820, finding that almanacs played an unparalleled role in reinforcing British North America's "shared religious culture."

How Early American Quakers transcended the idea of the nation-state during the turbulent Age of Revolution: “Provocative . . . important . . . Highly recommended.” —Choice Early American Quakers have long been perceived as retiring separatists, but in Holy Nation Sarah Crabtree transforms our historical understanding of the sect by drawing on the sermons, diaries, and correspondence of Quakers themselves. Situating Quakerism within the larger intellectual and religious undercurrents of the Atlantic world, Crabtree shows how Quakers forged a paradoxical sense of their place in the world as militant warriors fighting for peace. She argues that during the turbulent Age of Revolution and Reaction, the Religious Society of Friends forged a “holy nation,” a transnational community of like-minded believers committed first and foremost to divine law and to one another. Declaring themselves citizens of their own nation served to underscore the decidedly unholy nature of the nation-state, worldly governments, and profane laws. As a result, campaigns of persecution against the Friends escalated as those in power moved to declare Quakers aliens and traitors to their home countries. Holy Nation convincingly shows that ideals and actions were inseparable for the Society of Friends, yielding an account of Quakerism that is simultaneously a history of the faith and its adherents and a history of its confrontations with the wider world. Ultimately, Crabtree says, the conflicts between obligations of church and state that Quakers faced can illuminate similar contemporary struggles. “A significant and highly important contribution to the scholarship on the intersection of religion and nationalism during [these] critical decades. . . . carefully researched and elegantly written.” —Kirsten Fischer, University of Minnesota

American Heresy uncovers the complex legacy of America's founding principles, demonstrating how the very same values have produced both good fruit and the bitter harvest of white Christian nationalism. Fanestil adeptly traces an early American story that reaches into our present with alarming immediacy. Using cogent examples from the earliest days of colonial settlement through the Revolutionary War era, Fanestil helps us understand how many of the principles we view as paradigmatic expressions of American identity have had contested histories from the start. Virtue has brought both self-sacrifice and extremism; progress, both cultural pride and white racism. The very same principles that underpin the United States' proudest moments also forged the white Christian nationalism that fruited so dangerously in the Capitol insurrection of January 6, 2021. The implications of Fanestil's complex history are highly pertinent--and alarming. Far from a fringe movement embraced by a violent few, white Christian nationalism is a spiritual inheritance shared by all white American Christians. Grappling with this history is vital if the United States is ever to move beyond its tragic legacy as a white settler society.