Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism Paperback – Illustrated, January 7, 2005

My review from White Crane Journal - Summer 2008I was a history major in college and have retained a deep interest in historical subjects. I consider myself pretty well-read in history. My time in seminary and a lifetime in the church also left me with what I thought was a pretty good sense of the religious history of the United States. Then I picked up a copy of Susan Jacoby's best-selling book Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism and discovered how little I really knew. It would seem strange that a book about the secularist history of the United States would teach me so much about American religious history but as is often the case, you need to know both sides to understand the full story. Having read and enjoyed this incredibly well-researched and thought-provoking book, I now realize that what I most love about the religious contributions to American culture were forged and informed by its progressive and open exchange with secularists and freethinkers.Freethinkers came out in 2004 and spent some time on the New York Times best seller lists so it is widely available in paperback now. I can say without reservation that it is the best book I've read this year and perhaps the most mind-altering book of history I've read in the last ten years. I cannot think of another book that left me with a clarifying "aha!" moment on almost every single page. I tend to read a few books at a time and I've enjoyed savoring Jacoby's writing. It is laid out in chronological order but its abundance of new information of a largely overlooked section of American history makes it an almanac of sorts on those figures who stood for free expression, for reason, and for a clear separation of church and state. There were many misconceptions about religion in American history that were deflated by this book. One discovers that in the colonial period it was the South, in states like Virginia and Georgia that the power of religion and of church structures was most fought, most notably by founding fathers Jefferson and Madison. The northern states were zealous in their desire to have an established church and to have religious tests for office-holders. It was Baptists in the South who, fearing the dominance of the Anglican/Episcopal church, wanted no church sponsorship of religion. Of course this geographic split would be reversed in a generation in ways that would echo the culture wars we are currently living in. This is the gift of Jacoby's book. So many "how did we get here?" questions, whether we have even known to ask them, are answered in her entertaining and informative writing.Along the way Jacoby recovers some astounding exemplars of freethought--people like Robert Ingersoll. Known in his day as "the Great Agnostic," he drew enormous audiences to his live talks around the country and had the admiration of Mark Twain and Walt Whitman, who said that Ingersoll was "from head to foot [sic] is flushed with the square -- every line of him--of his books--bathed in justice, love of right, human generosity, to a degree I fail to find in any other." Ingersoll's words still resonate more than a hundred years later:"For while I am opposed to all orthodox creeds, I have a creed myself, and my creed is this: Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so. This creed is somewhat short, but is long enough for this life; long enough for this world. If there is another world, when we get there we can make another creed. But this creed certainly will do for this life."We are in many ways indebted to Ingersoll for the fact that we even know and read Whitman's Leaves of Grass. As an attorney Ingersoll was instrumental in battling the Comstock censorship laws that barred the distribution of materials deemed "obscene." For years it kept Whitman's work from not only finding a publisher but from receiving a wide audience by mail. Ingersoll's importance to Whitman was clarified by the fact that the great "agnostic" speaker was chosen to give the eulogy at Whitman's funeral. Jacoby, in her sole appendix item, includes Ingersoll's moving tribute to Whitman's vision and importance.Jacoby's book is thoughtfully written and such a pleasure. She does not have an axe to grind, but just tells the stories we have never been told. The book traverses through the history of the country and ends with a very pointed critique of how much we have lost by being cheated of this important history of freethought. Liberalism and skepticism and reason--those movements or understandings that have been so instrumental to a social and cultural relaxing around sexuality--are the result of individuals and movements for a rejection of illogical dogma and towards a clear-thinking approach to living life. We owe our liberty of mind and body to those who challenged the assumptions and laws of tradition and institution. Jacoby's book should be on every reading list this year.Jacoby's latest book, The Age of American Unreason offers up a critique of the current war on intellect that we are living through in the United States. I look forward to reviewing it for these pages. But don't wait for me. Read Freethinkers and I suspect you will seek out Jacoby's newer book soon after. It's that well-written.Dan Vera is managing editor of White Crane. He lives in Washington, DC where he writes poetry and organizes readings and other arts and culture events. Visit him at [...]

This book has a narrow purpose and that is to present a sampling of the major political contributions of Freethinkers to U.S. History. Ms. Jacoby does not explore the ideology of freethinking in any great depth, nor does much material focus on conflicts within this ideology, its roots, the evolution of freethinking, and its future. Instead she focuses on the political contributions made by American Freethinkers, often by their partnering up with religious groups who also contributed to the major moral progress our political system has yielded over the past 219 years. Sects like the Baptists prior to our founding through ratification of the Constitution as well as liberal protestants from the start of the abolitionist movement through the present day.The contributions listed in this book, while chronologically presented, are told as discrete narratives with few common threads that one would expect in a comprehensive history. However, as an introductory history of freethinking, which this book is, it's a near perfect execution - I would say on a par with Chief Justice Rehnquist's history of the Supreme Court that was also told by way of discrete narratives.While Ms. Jacoby considers herself a Freethinker, this book is surprisingly unbiased, with freethinking positions presented within their proper context, free of rhetorical devices, and amazingly respectful to the contrary ideologies which have also thrived to the present day; even though these competing ideologies generally demonize Freethinkers with a cornucopia of rhetorical fallacies so effectively that freethinking is the least respected ideology in America.Ms. Jacoby also does not have a problem documenting where Freethinkers went off the deep-end or other weaknesses of historical freethinking positions. This dispassionate approach exemplifies how important it is to carefully evaluate the character and scholarly abilities of the people we trust to present us with information. Consider the wildly inaccurate polemics of revisionist David Barton who has subsequently been forced to admit many of published claims of the supposed religiosity of our founding framers was simply not true - they never said or did much of what he claimed in past books he wrote. Jacoby's presentation, bibliography and source notes are one of a true scholar.The structure of the book is as follows:The first three chapters cover a brief history of our founding ideals and the execution of those ideals by ratification of the U.S. Constitution. While interesting, three chapters on the biggest achievement Freethinkers contributed to in our nation's history, that of a Constitution reserving our individual rights and limiting government power by a sovereign free people rather than from a God-ordained monarch provides only a cursory review of the enlightened rationalists of the day like Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, John Adams, and Andrew Hamilton (see Jacoby's fine bibliography for more expansive sources or my other reader reviews).The 3rd chapter begins the abolitionist narrative and also begins the discussion of the opportunity abolitionism presented for women to start their march for the same "privileges and immunities" propertied, white, protestant men enjoyed at our country's founding. The role women played in our moral progress is one of the rare common threads Jacoby weaves through her chapters, with this thread covering the roots of abolition well into the 20th century.The fourth chapter on Lincoln was the finest essay in the book, well written and with a very strong analysis on why the early biographers contradicted each other regarding Lincoln's beliefs, convictions, and motivations to lead this country through the Civil War. I especially appreciated reading Jacoby's perspective on Lincoln's biographers when describing Lincoln's ideology and how they could be so wildly divergent.Subsequent chapters cover the dawn of Darwin's theory of evolution, the political contributions during the golden age of free thought in the late-19th century, the culture wars as mainstream churches lost membership while America went through several lower-church revivals, and the development of a political partnership between the lower churches and the Catholic Church. A chapter on some freethinkers deserting their libertarian roots to toy with far left political ideologies while other Freethinkers competed with this new tangent by defending our founding ideal of libertarianism. Another chapter covers the realization of freethinking efforts for true freedom that occurred for tens of millions of additional Americans from the 1940s through the 60s as America really got serious about denying government the unconstitutional power to infringe on individual rights, especially in the areas of religious freedom, voting rights, interracial marriage and privacy. Another reader review is correct that this section was scant in its exposition of libertarian Freethinkers like Ayn Rand, H.L. Mencken, and a comparison of freethinking to the ideology of neocon pioneers like Irving Kristol; I would argue that this is the one major flaw in this book and the reason I knocked a star off.Jacoby follows up with a brief chapter on the current culture war and ends the book with the only polemic of the book, an apologetic on Reason and Freethinking. And while these chapters are not unwelcome, there are many other books that go much more deeply into these subjects. The golden nuggets of this book are the reviews of freethinking contributions at each point in American history where our culture changed because of the impact of political changes contributed at least partly by a small minority of people that best exemplify what Jefferson and Adams hoped Americans would eventually all subscribe to - a universalist approach to liberty grounded in rationalism and empiricism rather than the primitive superstitions that ruled that day and still rule most Americans' lives.Jacoby does a fine job of describing why we should thank Freethinkers for our liberty every bit as much as we should our veterans (my analogy, not hers); not because of what she believes, but because of the actions of past Freethinkers noted in this book and the obvious fruits of their labor, i.e., our Constitution, the ending of slavery, women's rights, the end of government-sponsored racism and the embrace of the scientific method and rejection of a "God of the gaps" approach by our intelligentsia that has led to our technological progress.

This was an enjoyable read, as a freethinker who has read about individual freethinkers in the past. This was helpful for getthing an overall sweep of the history of freethinking in the United States. It was interesting especially to see how various parties try to rewrite the history, e.g. of the founding fathers, or the question of whether Abraham Lincoln was a christian. Also enjoyed the prominent place given in this work to my hero, Robert Ingersoll. Maybe on occasions the book could do with a little more background for non americans. I wish there was such a history in general circulation of freethought here in the UK.

Great book great service

In God we trust, eine Nation vor Gott, ich schwöre bei Gott, und all die anderen Floskeln, die das Bild Amerikas in Europa prägen. Oder auch das oft propagierte Bild der frommen, gottesfürchtigen Siedler, die das Land aufgebaut haben... und trotzdem wird Gott in der amerikanischen Verfassung nicht erwähnt. Wie kommt das? Welche Rolle spielten Atheisten, Agnostiker und andere Freidenker in der amerikanischen Geschichte? In welchem Umfeld und aus welcher Motiavtion entstanden die verschiedenen Bewegungen wie die Frauenrechtlerinnen und warum spielt die Religion in der schwarzen Bürgerrechtsbewegung eine derart dominante Rolle, obwohl doch die Sklaverei selbst aus den 10 Geboten heraus begründet wurde?Diese und viele andere Fragen behandelt Susan Jacoby sehr sachlich, sehr informativ und auf eine sehr angenehme Art. Gut zu lesen, kein Abdriften ins missionarisch-belehrende, keine plumpe schwarz-weiß-Malerei, sondern gut beschriebene, ausführliche Erläuterungen. Alles in allem ein tolles Buch, das auch/insbesondere Europäern viele neue Blickwinkel eröffnet.Absolut empfehlenswert!

Obwohl es früher die Sklaverei gab und Frauen nicht wählen durften, scheint eine Übersicht über die sekuläre Bewegung in Amerika darauf zu zeigen, dass wir heute wohl gewaltige Rückschritte machen. Sicherlich waren erzkonservative religiöse Menschen damals sehr einflussreich, aber Menschen wie beispielsweise Robert Ingersoll, der im 19. Jahrhundert immer vor vollem Haus der christliche Glaube geißelte und die Gleichberechtigung der Frau einforderte, hatten es wohl damals leichter als es heute der Fall gewesen wäre....

If only more Americans knew what this woman knows about their own country and its history. If you are American and atheist or religious please read this book.