Christianity and Politics in the American Founding
BOOKS
Roger Sherman and the Creation of the American Republic
"This is the best life of Connecticut’s foremost Founding Father ever written. More than that, it demonstrates once and for all that Calvinism played a very significant role in shaping the American Revolution and U.S. Constitution. Henceforth, historians will have to take account of Mark David Hall’s book in all studies of 'the creation of the American republic.'"
--Kevin R.C. Gutzman, The American Conservative
"Mark David Hall’s elegantly written, carefully researched, and downright persuasive Roger Sherman and the Creation of the American Republic will transform forever your view of one founder, Roger Sherman, and quite possibly of the American founding, too. Hall so brilliantly and strenuously challenges the consensus view that we should look forward to this book being banned from public schools across the country."
--Jay Bruce, Law & Liberty
"Roger Sherman and the Creation of the American Republic is an excellent read that is worth the time invested. Hall is a gifted writer and careful researcher who frames his evidence well."
--Scott Culpepper, Pro Rege
"This fine study is recommended not only for students but also for scholars who believe they can understand the founding as a purely secular event."
--Jane Calvert, Journal of American History
"A great book about a great but little known American. Professor Hall gracefully explains how one of the Founding Era's best politicians fully integrated his religious faith into a life of pragmatic and effective public service. Why can't more histories be this enjoyable to read?"
--William R. Casto, Paul Whitfield Horn University Professor of Law, Texas Tech University
"In this thoughtful, compelling book, Mark David Hall not only demonstrates that Roger Sherman was one of the most influential Founding Fathers, but he also convincingly locates Sherman's politics in the Reformed Christian tradition. Sherman deserves recognition as an indispensable leader of the new American nation, and every student and scholar of the Revolutionary period would profit greatly from reading Hall's treatment of this distinguished Connecticut Patriot."
--Thomas S. Kidd, Distinguished Professor of History, Baylor University
"It is one of the many virtues of Mark David Hall's succinct, lucid monograph that he makes a convincing case for Sherman s significance without falling prey to the whining tone of special pleading that so often taints books examining neglected Founding Fathers...Hall has written an admirable introduction to Roger Sherman's life, political career, and role as a thinking politician...[An] excellent book."
--R.B. Bernstein, Church History and Religious Culture
Great Christian Jurists in American History
"I enthusiastically recommend this wonderfully conceived volume on the intersections of Christian thought and the American legal tradition. The editors Daniel L. Dreisbach and Mark David Hall have provided an enormous service by illuminating the enduring but contentious influence of Christian belief on some of the most prominent jurists in American history."
--Thomas S. Kidd, Vardaman Distinguished Professor of History, Baylor University, Texas
"If you dig beneath almost anything, you are likely to find religion or something closely akin to it. Law is no different. The implications for law of one's deepest convictions can be either thoughtful or not so thoughtful. Great Christian Jurists in American History contains essays about and by some of the people who have thought most deeply about the connections between Christian faith, morality, and American law. An understanding of the jurists discussed in these essays is essential for anyone who wants to understand the religious roots of American law and the critique Christian faith might bring to American law."
--Robert F. Cochran, Jr, Louis D. Brandeis Professor of Law and Founder of the Nootbaar Institute Pepperdine University, California
Faith and the Founders of the American Republic
"This book does a splendid job of illuminating varieties of American revolutionary and religious experience...."
--Journal of American History
"Dreisbach and Hall's volume definitely advances the conversation about religion and the founding through widening the scope of topics considered and acknowledging the complexity of the issue."
--Religion in American History
"This book helpfully extends the excellent efforts that its editors have been making for several years to clarify, but also to complicate, historical understanding of religion and the American founding."
--Journal of Religion
"This is a unique and very interesting volume. There have been many works on the faith of the American founders, but this one is both notably comprehensive and intriguing. Its contents range from deism to Judaism to Calvinism to Islam, from Loyalists to Baptists, from Quakers to Presbyterians, from John Hancock to John Dickinson, from the Bible to race. Much of this work breaks entirely new ground. Kudos to Daniel Dreisbach, Mark David Hall, and their colleagues for a real contribution to the field and for some fascinating reading."
--Paul Kengor, Professor of Political Science, Grove City College
"Faith and the Founders of the American Republic is a collection of essays that rises above the unfounded orthodoxies and retrieves encrusted orthodoxies back into historical analysis... [It] is at the forefront of this historiographical sea change. Things that should not have been forgotten were lost but now have been found. What many had relegated to myth is being returned to history."
--British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies
"This volume seeks to restore the notion that many of the founding if lesser-known lights of the Revolutionary era were decidedly religious, and brought their religious perspectives and motives to bear on their political convictions and actions. The topics are quite diverse from considerations of the role of Judaism and Islam to various political factions (Loyalists, Federalists) to various figures such as Elias Boudinot and John Hancock." -
-Religious Studies Review
The Forgotten Founders on Religion and Public Life
"For more than a decade these three editors, separately and together, have led us to a more nuanced view of the central place of religion in the American founding era. Not only were the political views of famous founders like Adams, Jefferson, and Madison more dependent on religion than their modern secular caricature allows. But many other figures, from varying religious traditions, proved equally critical to forging the original American understanding of constitutional order, democratic liberty, and rule of law. This well-crafted volume introduces a dozen such founding figures and the sterling political accomplishments that they offered the young nation on the strength of their religious convictions."
--John Witte, Jr., Emory University
"This excellent collection explores the rich diversity of the American mind at the Founding by attending to the spiritual, political, and intellectual convictions of a dozen men and women prominent in the events of that seminal period but relatively neglected by the historians. It fills a major gap left In the literature with its conventional fixation on the life and work of a handful of luminaries. In doing so, it takes seriously the role of religion in grounding devotion to Whig liberty and common law constitutionalism to form a popular consensus that has endured from 1776 until today. Highly readable and thoroughly sourced, this is a book for anyone interested in American history and politics."
--Ellis Sandoz, Moyse Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Louisiana State University
"There is no book comparable to The Forgotten Founders on Religion and Public Life. It is a collection of eleven essays on the many neglected figures or, in some cases, the neglected church-state views of duly appreciated figures. The book's appeal goes beyond the realm of constitutional doctrine. In addition to constitutional lawyers, constitutional historians, historians of religion in America, and those who study American political thought will all welcome and value the book."
--Gerard V. Bradley, University of Notre Dame Law School
“There is no book comparable to The Forgotten Founders on Religion and Public Life. It is a collection of eleven essays on the many neglected figures or, in some cases, the neglected church-state views of duly appreciated figures. The book’s appeal goes beyond the realm of constitutional doctrine. In addition to constitutional lawyers, constitutional historians, historians of religion in America, and those who study American political thought will all welcome and value the book.”
--Mark A. Noll, Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame
The Founders on God and Government
"This fine book belongs on the small shelf of required books of anyone who wishes to understand the religious roots of our American republic. With careful attention to the massive scholarship bearing on the subject, it concisely and elegantly makes the argument that religion does matter to the Founding, and it explains the scope and central importance of religious liberty for leading actors in that great drama. Incisive, a good read, warmly recommended."
--G. Ellis Sandoz, director, Eric Voegelin Institute for American Renaissance Studies
"The Founders and God were often inseparable, despite the tenor of much modern scholarship. This volume does an excellent job of bringing them back together."
--Donald Drakeman, Lecturer, Department of Politics, Princeton University
"What is the proper relationship between religion and politics in America? This question has been debated from the earliest colonists to contemporary politicians. Certainly during my 30 years in the U.S. Senate there were few issues more contentious than those involving religion and politics.The Founders on God and Government sheds important light on the influence of Christianity on the political thoughts and actions of nine of the most important Founders. Because of the influence these men had on America's constitutional order, this collection should be read by anyone concerned about the proper relationship between religion and politics today."
--Mark O. Hatfield, Former U.S. Senator
America and the Just War Tradition
"These wise, penetrating essays offer a dispassionate moral assessment of the justice of past American wars from the just war perspective. The editors’ superb introductory chapter on the just war tradition provides the foundation for the eleven case studies on U.S. wars—from the Revolutionary War to recent post–Cold War conflict in Afghanistan. This book is an important contribution to the applied ethics of just war reasoning."
--Mark R. Amstutz, emeritus, Wheaton College
"Many recently published and revised books discuss the just war tradition with the aid of case studies or historical examples, but I cannot think of any recent book that focuses solely on the ethics of a subset of US wars. The book is very readable for anyone in academic humanities and even for non-academics. America and the Just War Traditionsucceeds admirably as a general introduction. It provides a jumping-off point for deeper analysis of the ethics of particular wars."
--James L. Cook, United States Air Force Academy
“This collection has the capacity to be the reference point for just war theory in relation to American wars from colonial origins to today. It deserves a wide readership. The editors are extremely knowledgeable and their arguments cohere.”
--Harry Stout, Jonathan Edwards Professor of American Religious History, Yale University
Political and Legal Philosophy of James Wilson 1742-1798
"Mark David Hall's welcome new study ought to spur a resurgence of scholarly interest in Wilson . . . clearly written and enlightening."
--R.B. Bernstein, New York Law School
"Hall writes well. He avoids jargon, organizes his material logically, and deals with intellectual abstractions effectively. He has crafted an intellectually sophisticated and important book that is both readable and of reasonable length--no small accomplishment."
--Owen S. Ireland, Pennsylvania History
"The Political and Legal Philosophy of James Wilson is first rate. I read it cover to cover as soon as I got it, and learned much in the process . . . an outstanding piece of work."
--M. Stanton Evans, Director, National Journalism Center
