David Bennett presents a ground-breaking historical analysis of the forces shaping nativist and counter-subversive activity in America from colonial times to the present. He demonstrates that in this nation of immigrants the American Right did not emerge form postfeudal parties of privilege or from the social chaos that bred a Hitler of Mussolini in Europe.

This book analyzes violence involving Catholics in the nineteenth-century world – revealing the motives for violence, showing the link between religious and secular grievances, and illuminating Catholic pluralism. Catholics and Violence in the Nineteenth-Century Global World is the first study to systematically analyze the link between faith and violent action in modern history. Focusing on incidents involving members of the Roman Catholic Church across the globe, the book offers a kaleidoscopic overview of situations in which physical or symbolic violence attended inner-Catholic, Catholic-secular, and interreligious conflicts. Focusing especially on the role of agency, the authors explore the motives behind, perceptions of, and legitimation strategies for religion-related violence, as well as evaluating debates about conflict and discussing the role of religious leadership in violent incidents. Additionally, they illuminate the complex ways in which religious grievances interacted with secular differences and highlight the plurality of Catholic standpoints. In doing so, the book brings to light the variety of ways in which religion and violence have interacted historically. Showing that the link between faith and violence was more nuanced than theoreticians of ‘religious violence’ suggest, the book will appeal to historians, social scientists, and religious scholars.

Once a keystone of the Democratic Party, American Catholics are today helping to put Republicans in office. This book traces changes in party allegiance and voting behavior of Catholics in national elections over the course of 150 years and explains why much of the voting bloc that supported John F. Kennedy has deserted the Democratic coalition. William B. Prendergast analyzes the relationship between Catholics and the GOP from the 1840s to 1990s. He documents a developing attachment of Catholics to Republican candidates beginning early in this century and shows that, before Kennedy, Catholics helped elect Eisenhower, returned to the polls in support of Nixon and Reagan, and voted for a Republican Congress in 1994. To account for this shifting allegiance, Prendergast analyzes transformations in the Catholic population, the parties, and the political environment. He attributes these changes to the Americanization of immigrants, the socioeconomic and educational advancement of Catholics, and the emergence of new issues. He also cites the growth of ecumenicism, the influence of Vatican II, the abatement of Catholic-Protestant hostility, and the decline of anti-Catholicism in the Republican party. Clearly demonstrating a Catholic move toward political independence, Prendergast's work reveals both the realignment of voters and the influence of religious beliefs in the political arena. Provocative and informative, it confirms the opinion of pollsters that no candidate can take the vote of the largest and most diverse religious group in the nation for granted.