Antifundamentalism in Modern America

David Harrington Watt teaches at Haverford College, where he is the Douglas and Dorothy Steere Professor of Quaker Studies. He is the author of Bible-Carrying Christians: Conservative Protestants and Social Power and A Transforming Faith: Explorations of Twentieth-Century American Evangelicalism and coeditor of Fundamentalism: Perspectives on a Contested History.

[H]is prose is crisp and easily accessible from both popular and academic vantages. What's even more impressive is the fact that such a style embodies decades of nuanced thinking and discernment when it comes to the academic study of global fundamentalism. In these senses, Watt's work embodies what scholarly publishing is capable of in the early decades of the twenty-first century: engaging prose backed by dense networks of historiographic insight and archival density.... In short, Antifundamentalism in Modern America is a significant contribution to at least three separate but interrelated fields of academic inquiry: American religious history, religious studies, and American history. For historians writ large, Watt's text offers a well-supported argument through the use of multiple archives and close readings of primary source material.(H-Net) Watt is a keenly observant commentator who effortlessly blends media analysis with intellectual history, archival work with examinations of contemporary events. His prose is engaging without sacrificing depth or rigor. Perhaps most impressively, Watt is an even-handed and even generous critic of those with whom he disagrees. When it comes to the subject of fundamentalism, such equipoise is almost astonishing. But that is part of the point. Only by ratcheting down the rhetoric can one begin to dismantle the machinery that has built the targeting of ostensible fundamentalists—particularly Muslims, and often violently—into a pillar of statecraft at home and abroad.(Reading Religion) The rhetoric of antifundamentalism is unlikely to die as long as the behaviors that vex antifundamentalists persist. And while the concept of global fundamentalism is, as Watt persuasively argues, far more problematic, it, too, is likely to live on at least until the fears it engenders can be given a new name.(Journal of Church and State) Watt is methodical and fair-minded in laying out the problems involved in usage of the word fundamentalism and the history of its usage.... His book is instructive and important as a caution against oversimplified categories of interpretation.(Canadian Journal of History) Watt strives for evenhandedness even as he warns against the pitfalls in the notion of global fundamentalism. Antifundamentalism in Modern America is a careful and timely book that is worth thoughtfully reading.(The Journal of Southern History)

• Introduction: Putting Fundamentalism to Work1. Skeptics2. Defenders3. The First Fundamentalists4. Invention5. Ratification6. The Dustbin of History7. Reinvention8. ZenithConclusion: The Future of Fundamentalism