The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millenarianism, 1800-1930

Ernest Sandeen's Roots of Fundamentalism remains a landmark work in the history of religion. A National Book Award finalist, it was the first full-length study to present an intellectual historical critique of the Fundamentalist movement in America. Sandeen argues that our understanding of this movement has been grievously distorted by the Fundamentalist-Modernist debate of the 1920s, as symbolized by William Jennings Bryan and the Scopes trial. Rather than viewing Fundamentalism as a chiefly sociological phenomenon of the 1920s, Sandeen argues from a transatlantic perspective that the Fundamentalist movement "was a self-conscious, structured, long-lived dynamic entity" that had its origins in Anglo-American millenarian thought and movements of the nineteenth century.
"All historians need to face the issues [this book] raises. Serious theological discussion of Fundamentalism tends to be neglected because it is intellectually unfashionable: Mr. Sandeen shows that for the historian such neglect is a luxury he cannot afford."-David M. Thompson, English Historical Review "Sandeen's 'new approach to Fundamentalism' eschews the common tendency to see the movement as parochially American, rurally based, and essentially a phenomenon of the twenties. . . . It is a highly valuable addition to American and-more singularly-to comparative theological history."-William R. Hutchinson, Journal of American History

Author: Ernest R. Sandeen
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 11/01/2008
Pages: 336
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.05lbs
Size: 8.80h x 6.00w x 0.80d
ISBN: 9780226734682

About the Author
Ernest R. Sandeen (1931-82) was the James Wallace Professor of History and codirector of the Living Historical Museum at Macalester College.