| Description |
1 online resource (ix, 246 pages) |
| Contents |
The making of an iconoclast -- The political insider and the religious outsider -- Champion of science -- The humanistic freethinker -- Church and state -- Reason and passion -- Death and afterlife |
| Summary |
"In this provocative biography, Susan Jacoby, the author of Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism, restores Ingersoll to his rightful place in an American intellectual tradition extending from Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine to the current generation of "new atheists." Jacoby illuminates the ways in which America's often-denigrated and forgotten secular history encompasses issues, ranging from women's rights to evolution, as potent and divisive today as they were in Ingersoll's time. Ingersoll emerges in this portrait as one of the indispensable public figures who keep an alternative version of history alive. He devoted his life to that greatest secular idea of all--liberty of conscience belonging to the religious and nonreligious alike."--Publisher's website |
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This book is a biography that restores America's foremost nineteenth-century champion of reason and secularism to our still contested twenty-first-century public square. From the author of Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism comes a provocative portrait of Robert Green Ingersoll, known as "the Great Agnostic" and the foremost spokesman during America's Gilded Age for secularism and the separation of church and state. When he died in 1899, it was widely acknowledged that he might have aspired to the U.S. presidency had it not been for his antireligious views. Instead, he became the most passionate advocate for Enlightenment reason since the nation's founding. To the question that retains its divisive power -- was the United States founded as a Christian nation? -- Ingersoll answered an emphatic no. This erudite and entertaining account restores Ingersoll to his rightful place in an American intellectual tradition extending from Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine to the current generation of "new atheists." Jacoby illuminates the ways in which America's often-denigrated and forgotten secular history encompasses issues, including women's rights, immigration, racism, and evolution, that are as potent and divisive today as they were in Ingersoll's time. Ingersoll emerges in this portrait as one of the indispensable public figures who keeps an alternative version of history alive. He devoted his life to that greatest secular idea of all -- liberty of conscience belonging to the religious and nonreligious alike |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 221-224) and index |
| Notes |
English |
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Print version record |
| Subject |
Ingersoll, Robert Green, 1833-1899.
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Ingersoll, Robert Green, 1833-1899 |
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Freethinkers -- United States -- Biography
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Freethinkers -- United States -- History
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BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY -- Religious.
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RELIGION -- Agnosticism.
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HISTORY -- United States -- 19th Century.
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Freethinkers.
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Vrijdenkerij.
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United States.
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Verenigde Staten.
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| Genre/Form |
Biographies.
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History.
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Biografieën (vorm)
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| LC no. |
2012027881 |
| ISBN |
9780300188929 |
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0300188927 |
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9780300137255 |
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0300137257 |
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