Kathryn Gin Lum is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Stanford University. She received her PhD in History from Yale and her BA in History from Stanford. She is an Annenberg Faculty Fellow (2012-14), is affiliated with the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity (CCSRE) and the Department of History (by courtesy), and organizes the American Religions Workshop at Stanford.

Damned Nation offers worthwhile insights about the durability and usefulness of hell-talk in American meaning-making. Gin Lum gives students of US history another body of evidence for understanding the unique hybrid character of the nation, rooted in both reason and revelation... Gin Lum's book, so richly sourced, may even contribute to a better understanding of why and how our contemporary public conversations have become so raw. She teaches us readers that extreme rhetoric constitutes nothing new under the sun; she also may prompt us readers to peer beneath the edges of our own and others' cosmicized speech to see what very earthly terrain we are actually trying to defend.

• Acknowledgments ; A Note on the Text ; List of Illustrations ; Introduction - Damned Nation? ; Part One - Doctrine and Dissemination ; Chapter One - "Salvation" vs. "Damnation": Doctrinal Controversies in the Early Republic ; Chapter Two - "His blood covers me!": Disseminating Damnation in the Second Great Awakening ; Part Two - Adaptation and Dissent ; Chapter Three - "Oh, deliver me from being contentedly guilty": Laypeople and the Fear of Hell ; Chapter Four - "Ideas, opinions, can not damn the soul": Antebellum Dissent against Damnation ; Part Three - Deployment and Denouement ; Chapter Five - "Slavery Destroys Immortal Souls": Deployment of Damnation in the Slavery Controversy ; Chapter Six - "Our men die well": Damnation, Death, and the Civil War ; Epilogue ; Notes

Kathryn Gin Lum is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Stanford University. She received her PhD in History from Yale and her BA in History from Stanford. She is an Annenberg Faculty Fellow (2012-14), is affiliated with the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity (CCSRE) and the Department of History (by courtesy), and organizes the American Religions Workshop at Stanford.

Damned Nation offers worthwhile insights about the durability and usefulness of hell-talk in American meaning-making. Gin Lum gives students of US history another body of evidence for understanding the unique hybrid character of the nation, rooted in both reason and revelation... Gin Lum's book, so richly sourced, may even contribute to a better understanding of why and how our contemporary public conversations have become so raw. She teaches us readers that extreme rhetoric constitutes nothing new under the sun; she also may prompt us readers to peer beneath the edges of our own and others' cosmicized speech to see what very earthly terrain we are actually trying to defend.

• Acknowledgments ; A Note on the Text ; List of Illustrations ; Introduction - Damned Nation? ; Part One - Doctrine and Dissemination ; Chapter One - "Salvation" vs. "Damnation": Doctrinal Controversies in the Early Republic ; Chapter Two - "His blood covers me!": Disseminating Damnation in the Second Great Awakening ; Part Two - Adaptation and Dissent ; Chapter Three - "Oh, deliver me from being contentedly guilty": Laypeople and the Fear of Hell ; Chapter Four - "Ideas, opinions, can not damn the soul": Antebellum Dissent against Damnation ; Part Three - Deployment and Denouement ; Chapter Five - "Slavery Destroys Immortal Souls": Deployment of Damnation in the Slavery Controversy ; Chapter Six - "Our men die well": Damnation, Death, and the Civil War ; Epilogue ; Notes

Kathryn Gin Lum is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Stanford University. She received her PhD in History from Yale and her BA in History from Stanford. She is an Annenberg Faculty Fellow (2012-14), is affiliated with the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity (CCSRE) and the Department of History (by courtesy), and organizes the American Religions Workshop at Stanford.

Damned Nation offers worthwhile insights about the durability and usefulness of hell-talk in American meaning-making. Gin Lum gives students of US history another body of evidence for understanding the unique hybrid character of the nation, rooted in both reason and revelation... Gin Lum's book, so richly sourced, may even contribute to a better understanding of why and how our contemporary public conversations have become so raw. She teaches us readers that extreme rhetoric constitutes nothing new under the sun; she also may prompt us readers to peer beneath the edges of our own and others' cosmicized speech to see what very earthly terrain we are actually trying to defend.

• Acknowledgments ; A Note on the Text ; List of Illustrations ; Introduction - Damned Nation? ; Part One - Doctrine and Dissemination ; Chapter One - "Salvation" vs. "Damnation": Doctrinal Controversies in the Early Republic ; Chapter Two - "His blood covers me!": Disseminating Damnation in the Second Great Awakening ; Part Two - Adaptation and Dissent ; Chapter Three - "Oh, deliver me from being contentedly guilty": Laypeople and the Fear of Hell ; Chapter Four - "Ideas, opinions, can not damn the soul": Antebellum Dissent against Damnation ; Part Three - Deployment and Denouement ; Chapter Five - "Slavery Destroys Immortal Souls": Deployment of Damnation in the Slavery Controversy ; Chapter Six - "Our men die well": Damnation, Death, and the Civil War ; Epilogue ; Notes