Items related to Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith: Religion in American...
A richly detailed, profoundly engrossing story of how religion has influenced American foreign relations, told through the stories of the men and women—from presidents to preachers—who have plotted the country’s course in the world.
Ever since John Winthrop argued that the Puritans’ new home would be “a city upon a hill,” Americans’ role in the world has been shaped by their belief that God has something special in mind for them. But this is a story that historians have mostly ignored. Now, in the first authoritative work on the subject, Andrew Preston explores the major strains of religious fervor—liberal and conservative, pacifist and militant, internationalist and isolationist—that framed American thinking on international issues. From George Washington to George W. Bush, from the Puritans to the present, from the colonial wars to the Cold War, religion has been one of America’s most powerful sources of ideas about the wider world. Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith is a bold synthesis of American history and also a remarkable work of balance and fair-mindedness about one of the most fraught subjects in America.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author:
ANDREW PRESTON is a Senior Lecturer in History and Fellow of Clare College at Cambridge University. He has been a Fellow at the Cold War Studies Centre at the London School of Economics, and has previously held professorships in History and International Studies at Yale University, the University of Victoria, and The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. In addition to several journal articles and book chapters, Preston is the author of The War Council: McGeorge Bundy, the NSC, and Vietnam (Harvard University Press, 2006) and co-editor, with Fredrik Logevall, of Nixon in the World: American Foreign Relations, 1969-1977 (Oxford University Press, 2008).
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:
Introduction
Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith was written under the assumption that religion played an important role in shaping American percep- tions of the world and in contributing to domestic debates on how the United States should engage with other nations. It is an exploration not of whether religion influenced U.S. foreign relations, but how. It is a logical assumption: few would argue that religion has not played a consistently important role in American life, for better or worse.
This last qualifier—for better or worse—is important, for this book also operates under the assumption that religion is just like any other his- torical topic. It is not my desire, and certainly not my intention, to make a case either for or against a role for religion in public life. Readers will of course use the material in this book to support their own beliefs that religion is either a productive or a pernicious force in American foreign relations. Partisans on both sides of the acrimonious debate over religion’s place in the public square—and increasingly over the nature of religion itself—will find plenty of evidence to back up their competing claims. But such quarrels are not my concern. Religion provokes intense emotions, and no historian is free of bias. Nonetheless, I have sought to treat my subject as objectively as possible.
Doing so has meant recognizing that there was not one religious influence upon American foreign relations, but many: nationalist but also inter- nationalist, exceptionalist but also cosmopolitan, nativist but also tolerant, militant but also pacifist. The religious influence was neither monolithic nor consensual but a product of intense dialogue, debate, and controversy. Nor did it always push U.S. foreign policy in the same direction. It is a fascinatingly complex story, but its very complexity makes its unraveling all the more important and worthwhile.
BUT WHY FOCUS on religion at all? Why does it matter to American diplomatic history? Aside from the personal faith of individual policymakers, religion has been integral to American politics and culture, and to Ameri- ca’s sense of itself, and thus also to the products of politics and culture, such as foreign policy. More specifically, religion has had an almost uniquely intimate relationship with American war and diplomacy. In times of war, religious liberals and conservatives, militants and pacifists, have all called upon God to sanctify their cause, and all have viewed America as God’s chosen land. As a result, U.S. foreign policy has often acquired the tenor of a moral crusade.
Moreover, the religious mindset was geographically limitless; those who possessed it were concerned not only with their community, state, or country, but the entire world. As immigrants, generations of Ameri- can Christians, Jews, and Muslims thought of themselves as members of a transnational faith that transcended national boundaries. They kept in reg- ular contact with coreligionists overseas and followed the political affairs in foreign countries that affected these spiritual kinfolk. They sought to spread the gospel to people who had never heard of Christ and endured incredible hardship in doing so. They were more likely to live and travel abroad and more likely to have a foreign correspondent. Unlike most of their fellow citizens, then, religious Americans inherently thought of themselves as citizens of the world. They paid closer attention to foreign affairs and were more likely to allow international developments to affect their political views. Thus while religious faith helped create an American nationalism, it also fostered a powerful sense of internationalism.
Since the late sixteenth century, long before the United States existed, religion has played an important role in shaping Americans’ perceptions of the wider world. In both popular debates about American engagement with the world and the foreign policies that have emerged from these debates, religion has been a major factor. The religious influence—indeed, religious faith itself—has not always been strong or consistent. But though it has ebbed and flowed, it has always been there.
This seems to be a basic point—religion matters, and always has—yet it is an important one to make because it has been so neglected in explain- ing the history of American war and diplomacy. Historians have empha- sized a wide array of factors, from traditional concerns such as economics, national security, and military strategy, to newer theories based on race, gender, culture, and postmodernism. All are important grounds for inquiry, and all have yielded a rich understanding of the American past. Yet until very recently, religion was seen as a mystifying sideshow, an irrational impulse born of a “paranoid style” that clouded the realist assumptions of high diplomacy. Even after diplomatic history’s cultural turn—an exciting development over the past two decades that has pushed scholars to incor- porate race, class, and gender into the American diplomatic tradition—and its international turn, which portrays the United States as “a nation among nations,” religion remains peripheral or nonexistent. This is true for oth- erwise superb overviews of U.S. foreign policy that purport to examine American “ideals,” “style,” “ideology,” “mission,” “Wilsonian idealism,” “core values,” even “why America fights”—normative topics, in other words, that are ideally suited to religious ideas and values and incomplete without them. In fact, until very recently religion was sidelined in most fields of modern American history. Be it the history of politics, immigration, or civil rights, religious faith was pushed to the margins when it made any appearance at all. It seemed that only historians of American religion took religion seriously, an absurd situation when one considers the prevalence and importance of religion in American life.1
Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith aims to help fill this gap in our understanding of how Americans have engaged the wider world. It pre- sents a new survey of the history of American foreign relations, told pre- dominantly through a religious lens. Readers should remember that this is not a new master narrative of U.S. foreign policy but a new perspective that aims to complement and enrich existing interpretations without necessarily replacing them. I have begun my story at the onset of England’s settlement of North America in the late sixteenth century and ended it with a brief look at the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama in the early twenty-first. My chronological scope should not be taken as an argument for the essential continuity of an unchanging history, yet there has been continuity: time and again, many of the same themes appear and reappear down the years.
Many of these themes—cultural habits that informed the making of policy—originated in the colonial period and then crystallized in later years. To say that this book is an examination of U.S. foreign policy is to elide the fact that our story begins before there was a United States that could even have a foreign policy. But the colonial era was crucial, a period in which many of the premises of an American worldview were established and developed. To begin in 1776 or 1783 or 1789, then, is to join the story after it has already begun. Many other syntheses of U.S. foreign relations do precisely this, and while they have much to offer they miss much that is vital in the formative years. Ignoring the colonial period in an otherwise comprehensive overview assumes that habits and ideas began anew with the creation of the United States of America, when we know that this was impossible.
Yet while the earliest eras of American history matter greatly, they do not, in the history of American foreign policy or international relations more generally, matter nearly as much as more recent periods. Of the four centuries since Europeans crossed the Atlantic to settle the eastern shore of North America, it was only in the last hundred years that Amer- ica became a great power of truly world historical importance. As late as the 1880s, the United States was little more than a minnow in the diplo- matic ocean; from then on, it grew steadily to become one of the largest whales the world has ever seen. For this reason, I pay more attention to the period since the United States announced itself on the global stage by routing Spain in the war of 1898. Not coincidentally, this also marked the period when American religion became more pluralistic, more compli- cated, and more diffuse.2
To uncover the habits and ideas that gave shape to America’s interac- tions with the wider world, I focus not only on the traditional aspects of diplomatic history—elites in closed rooms conducting national security policy in secret—but also on the popular pressures brought to bear upon diplomats and policymakers. This book is a study of how religion shaped America’s engagement with the wider world, including the overseas efforts of private citizens, missionaries, and other nongovernmental organizations, in addition to the use of diplomatic and military power. It is not just about U.S. foreign policy, then, but U.S. foreign relations. The distinction is critical: the former term examines only the formulation and execution of actual government policy, while the latter includes policy but also a wider array of American interactions with the world, from missionaries to voluntarist and philanthropic initiatives to corporate and economic interests. The only way to capture the richness of the religious influence—and to find it where it would otherwise remain hidden—is to blend “high” and “low” versions of history, from the top-down perspective of policymaking elites to the bottom-up view of religious Americans who do not...
Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith was written under the assumption that religion played an important role in shaping American percep- tions of the world and in contributing to domestic debates on how the United States should engage with other nations. It is an exploration not of whether religion influenced U.S. foreign relations, but how. It is a logical assumption: few would argue that religion has not played a consistently important role in American life, for better or worse.
This last qualifier—for better or worse—is important, for this book also operates under the assumption that religion is just like any other his- torical topic. It is not my desire, and certainly not my intention, to make a case either for or against a role for religion in public life. Readers will of course use the material in this book to support their own beliefs that religion is either a productive or a pernicious force in American foreign relations. Partisans on both sides of the acrimonious debate over religion’s place in the public square—and increasingly over the nature of religion itself—will find plenty of evidence to back up their competing claims. But such quarrels are not my concern. Religion provokes intense emotions, and no historian is free of bias. Nonetheless, I have sought to treat my subject as objectively as possible.
Doing so has meant recognizing that there was not one religious influence upon American foreign relations, but many: nationalist but also inter- nationalist, exceptionalist but also cosmopolitan, nativist but also tolerant, militant but also pacifist. The religious influence was neither monolithic nor consensual but a product of intense dialogue, debate, and controversy. Nor did it always push U.S. foreign policy in the same direction. It is a fascinatingly complex story, but its very complexity makes its unraveling all the more important and worthwhile.
BUT WHY FOCUS on religion at all? Why does it matter to American diplomatic history? Aside from the personal faith of individual policymakers, religion has been integral to American politics and culture, and to Ameri- ca’s sense of itself, and thus also to the products of politics and culture, such as foreign policy. More specifically, religion has had an almost uniquely intimate relationship with American war and diplomacy. In times of war, religious liberals and conservatives, militants and pacifists, have all called upon God to sanctify their cause, and all have viewed America as God’s chosen land. As a result, U.S. foreign policy has often acquired the tenor of a moral crusade.
Moreover, the religious mindset was geographically limitless; those who possessed it were concerned not only with their community, state, or country, but the entire world. As immigrants, generations of Ameri- can Christians, Jews, and Muslims thought of themselves as members of a transnational faith that transcended national boundaries. They kept in reg- ular contact with coreligionists overseas and followed the political affairs in foreign countries that affected these spiritual kinfolk. They sought to spread the gospel to people who had never heard of Christ and endured incredible hardship in doing so. They were more likely to live and travel abroad and more likely to have a foreign correspondent. Unlike most of their fellow citizens, then, religious Americans inherently thought of themselves as citizens of the world. They paid closer attention to foreign affairs and were more likely to allow international developments to affect their political views. Thus while religious faith helped create an American nationalism, it also fostered a powerful sense of internationalism.
Since the late sixteenth century, long before the United States existed, religion has played an important role in shaping Americans’ perceptions of the wider world. In both popular debates about American engagement with the world and the foreign policies that have emerged from these debates, religion has been a major factor. The religious influence—indeed, religious faith itself—has not always been strong or consistent. But though it has ebbed and flowed, it has always been there.
This seems to be a basic point—religion matters, and always has—yet it is an important one to make because it has been so neglected in explain- ing the history of American war and diplomacy. Historians have empha- sized a wide array of factors, from traditional concerns such as economics, national security, and military strategy, to newer theories based on race, gender, culture, and postmodernism. All are important grounds for inquiry, and all have yielded a rich understanding of the American past. Yet until very recently, religion was seen as a mystifying sideshow, an irrational impulse born of a “paranoid style” that clouded the realist assumptions of high diplomacy. Even after diplomatic history’s cultural turn—an exciting development over the past two decades that has pushed scholars to incor- porate race, class, and gender into the American diplomatic tradition—and its international turn, which portrays the United States as “a nation among nations,” religion remains peripheral or nonexistent. This is true for oth- erwise superb overviews of U.S. foreign policy that purport to examine American “ideals,” “style,” “ideology,” “mission,” “Wilsonian idealism,” “core values,” even “why America fights”—normative topics, in other words, that are ideally suited to religious ideas and values and incomplete without them. In fact, until very recently religion was sidelined in most fields of modern American history. Be it the history of politics, immigration, or civil rights, religious faith was pushed to the margins when it made any appearance at all. It seemed that only historians of American religion took religion seriously, an absurd situation when one considers the prevalence and importance of religion in American life.1
Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith aims to help fill this gap in our understanding of how Americans have engaged the wider world. It pre- sents a new survey of the history of American foreign relations, told pre- dominantly through a religious lens. Readers should remember that this is not a new master narrative of U.S. foreign policy but a new perspective that aims to complement and enrich existing interpretations without necessarily replacing them. I have begun my story at the onset of England’s settlement of North America in the late sixteenth century and ended it with a brief look at the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama in the early twenty-first. My chronological scope should not be taken as an argument for the essential continuity of an unchanging history, yet there has been continuity: time and again, many of the same themes appear and reappear down the years.
Many of these themes—cultural habits that informed the making of policy—originated in the colonial period and then crystallized in later years. To say that this book is an examination of U.S. foreign policy is to elide the fact that our story begins before there was a United States that could even have a foreign policy. But the colonial era was crucial, a period in which many of the premises of an American worldview were established and developed. To begin in 1776 or 1783 or 1789, then, is to join the story after it has already begun. Many other syntheses of U.S. foreign relations do precisely this, and while they have much to offer they miss much that is vital in the formative years. Ignoring the colonial period in an otherwise comprehensive overview assumes that habits and ideas began anew with the creation of the United States of America, when we know that this was impossible.
Yet while the earliest eras of American history matter greatly, they do not, in the history of American foreign policy or international relations more generally, matter nearly as much as more recent periods. Of the four centuries since Europeans crossed the Atlantic to settle the eastern shore of North America, it was only in the last hundred years that Amer- ica became a great power of truly world historical importance. As late as the 1880s, the United States was little more than a minnow in the diplo- matic ocean; from then on, it grew steadily to become one of the largest whales the world has ever seen. For this reason, I pay more attention to the period since the United States announced itself on the global stage by routing Spain in the war of 1898. Not coincidentally, this also marked the period when American religion became more pluralistic, more compli- cated, and more diffuse.2
To uncover the habits and ideas that gave shape to America’s interac- tions with the wider world, I focus not only on the traditional aspects of diplomatic history—elites in closed rooms conducting national security policy in secret—but also on the popular pressures brought to bear upon diplomats and policymakers. This book is a study of how religion shaped America’s engagement with the wider world, including the overseas efforts of private citizens, missionaries, and other nongovernmental organizations, in addition to the use of diplomatic and military power. It is not just about U.S. foreign policy, then, but U.S. foreign relations. The distinction is critical: the former term examines only the formulation and execution of actual government policy, while the latter includes policy but also a wider array of American interactions with the world, from missionaries to voluntarist and philanthropic initiatives to corporate and economic interests. The only way to capture the richness of the religious influence—and to find it where it would otherwise remain hidden—is to blend “high” and “low” versions of history, from the top-down perspective of policymaking elites to the bottom-up view of religious Americans who do not...
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherVintage Canada
- Publication date2012
- ISBN 10 067697743X
- ISBN 13 9780676977431
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages832
- Rating
(No Available Copies)
Search Books: Create a WantIf you know the book but cannot find it on AbeBooks, we can automatically search for it on your behalf as new inventory is added. If it is added to AbeBooks by one of our member booksellers, we will notify you!
Create a Want