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Sectarianism and Orestes Brownson in the American Religious Marketplace

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  • © 2017

Overview

Authors:
  1. Ángel Cortés

    1. Department of History, Holy Cross College, Notre Dame, USA

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  • Explores the meaning of sectarianism in nineteenth-century America through Orestes Brownson’s life and writings
  • Shows how religious mobility shaped belief in antebellum America and how people responded to religious choice and division
  • Offers a psychological portrait of Brownson and his approach to religious mobility

Part of the book series: Histories of the Sacred and Secular, 1700–2000 (HISASE)

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Table of contents (10 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-x
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Preface

    • Ángel Cortés
    Pages 1-5

  3. An Age of ‘Crisis and Discontinuity’: Brownson’s Early Religious Confusion and Mobility

    • Ángel Cortés
    Pages 7-13

  4. ‘A Sea of Sectarian Rivalries’: The Second Great Awakening and Religious Conflict

    • Ángel Cortés
    Pages 15-35

  5. ‘I am Slave to no Sect’: Brownson’s Defense of Intellectual Freedom and Doubt

    • Ángel Cortés
    Pages 37-53

  6. ‘I Wished to Unite Men’: A Vision of Religious Calm in the Midst of an Intellectual Storm

    • Ángel Cortés
    Pages 55-74

  7. ‘We must have clothing and a shelter’: The Search for a Religious Home

    • Ángel Cortés
    Pages 75-99

  8. ‘We are Ourselves Too Polemical’: Formation of a Rhetorical Pugilist

    • Ángel Cortés
    Pages 101-118

  9. ‘A Dangerous and Pestilent Fellow’: Return to Religious Liberalism

    • Ángel Cortés
    Pages 119-137

  10. ‘An Uncompromising Catholic and a Thoroughgoing Papist’: End of a Long Journey

    • Ángel Cortés
    Pages 139-148

  11. Epilogue

    • Ángel Cortés
    Pages 149-159

  12. Back Matter

    Pages 161-178
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Keywords

About this book

This book reveals the origins of the American religious marketplace by examining the life and work of reformer and journalist Orestes Brownson (1803-1876). Grounded in a wide variety of sources, including personal correspondence, journalistic essays, book reviews, and speeches, this work argues that religious sectarianism profoundly shaped participants in the religious marketplace. Brownson is emblematic of this dynamic because he changed his religious identity seven times over a quarter of a century. Throughout, Brownson waged a war of words opposing religious sectarianism. By the 1840s, however, a corrosive intellectual environment transformed Brownson into an arch religious sectarian. The book ends with a consideration of several explanations for Brownson’s religious mobility, emphasizing the goad of sectarianism as the most salient catalyst for change. 

Reviews

“This cogent, fluently written account illuminates the diversity of 19th century American society and religion through the surprising career of Orestes Brownson.  By turns a Universalist, Presbyterian, nonsectarian, Unitarian, and Transcendentalist, Brownson finally converted to Catholicism, but never escaped controversy.” (Daniel Walker Howe, author of Pulitzer-Prize-winning What Hath God Wrought:  The Transformation of America, 1815-1848)

“Orestes Brownson -- Presbyterian, Universalist, Freethinker, Transcendentalist, and finally Roman Catholic apologist -- has long puzzled historians of American religion and intellectual life. At times he appears no more than a smart and articulate shuttlecock, bouncing from creed to creed for his own idiosyncratic, ever-changing reasons. By placing Brownson in the context of the sectarian Protestant religious marketplace of pre-Civil War America, Angel Cortes allows us to grasp the coherent dynamic underlying the apparent instability of this major American intellectual.” (James Turner, Cavanaugh Professor of Humanities Emeritus, University of Notre Dame, USA)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Department of History, Holy Cross College, Notre Dame, USA

    Ángel Cortés

About the author

Ángel Cortés is an Associate Professor of History at Holy Cross College, USA. Cortés holds degrees in Psychology, Religious Studies, and History.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Sectarianism and Orestes Brownson in the American Religious Marketplace

  • Authors: Ángel Cortés

  • Series Title: Histories of the Sacred and Secular, 1700–2000

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51877-0

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: History, History (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-51876-3Published: 21 July 2017

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-84767-2Published: 13 May 2018

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-51877-0Published: 10 July 2017

  • Series ISSN: 2946-3351

  • Series E-ISSN: 2946-336X

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: X, 178

  • Topics: US History, Social History, History of Religion, Cultural History

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