The Religious Left in Modern America ― Doorkeepers of a Radical Faith

This edited collection of exciting new scholarship provides comprehensive coverage of the broad sweep of twentieth century religious activism on the American left. The volume covers a diversity of perspectives, including Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish history, and important essays on African-American, Latino, and women's spirituality. Taken together, these essays offer a comparative and long-term perspective on religious groups and social movements often studied in isolation, and fully integrate faith-based action into the history of progressive social movements and politics in the modern United States. It becomes clear that throughout the twentieth century, religious faith has served as a powerful motivator and generator for activism, not just as on the right, where observers regularly link religion and politics, but on the left. This volume will appeal to historians of modern American politics, religion, and social movements, religious studies scholars, and contemporary activists.

Leilah Danielson is Professor of History at Northern Arizona University, USA. She has written extensively on the role of religion and race in left politics and the peace movement, and is the author of American Gandhi: A.J. Muste and the History of Radicalism in the Twentieth Century (2014).

Marian Mollin is Associate Professor of History at Virginia Tech, USA. She is the author of Radical Pacifism in Modern America: Egalitarianism and Protest. Her current book project, The Power of Faith: Understanding the Life and Death of Sister Ita Ford, explores connections between gender, religion, and politics in the postwar era.

Doug Rossinow teaches history at the University of Oslo, Norway. He is the author of The Politics of Authenticity: Liberalism, Christianity, and the New Left in America (1998) and Visions of Progress: The Left-Liberal Tradition in America (2007), among other works.