The first comprehensive biography of Elihu Palmer tells the life story of a freethinker who was at the heart of the early United States' protracted contest over religious freedom and free speech. When the United States was new, a lapsed minister named Elihu Palmer shared with his fellow Americans the radical idea that virtue required no religious foundation. A better source for morality, he said, could be found in the natural world: the interconnected web of life that inspired compassion for all living things. Religions that deny these universal connections should be discarded, he insisted. For this, his Christian critics denounced him as a heretic whose ideas endangered the country. Although his publications and speaking tours made him one of the most infamous American freethinkers in his day, Elihu Palmer has been largely forgotten. No cache of his personal papers exists and his book has been long out of print. Yet his story merits telling, Kirsten Fischer argues, and not only for the dramatic account of a man who lost his eyesight before the age of thirty and still became a book author, newspaper editor, and itinerant public speaker. Even more intriguing is his encounter with a cosmology that envisioned the universe as interconnected, alive with sensation, and everywhere infused with a divine life force. Palmer's "heresy" tested the nation's recently proclaimed commitment to freedom of religion and of speech. In this he was not alone. Fischer reveals that Palmer engaged in person and in print with an array of freethinkers—some famous, others now obscure. The flourishing of diverse religious opinion struck some of his contemporaries as foundational to a healthy democracy while others believed that only a strong Christian faith could support democratic self-governance. This first comprehensive biography of Palmer draws on extensive archival research to tell the life story of a freethinker who was at the heart of the new nation's protracted contest over religious freedom and free speech—a debate that continues to resonate today.

Challenging carved-in-stone tenets of Christianity, deism began sprouting in colonial America in the early eighteenth century, was flourishing nicely by the American Revolution, and for all intents and purposes was dead by 1811. Despite its hasty demise, deism left a theological legacy. Christian sensibility would never be quite the same. Bringing together the works of six major American deists—Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Ethan Allen, Thomas Paine, Elihu Palmer, and Philip Frenau—an dthe Frechman Comte de Volney, whose writings greatly influenced the American deists, Kerry Walters has created the fullest analysis yet of deism and rational religion in colonial and early America. In addition to presenting a chronological collection of several works by each author, he provides a description of deism’s historical roots, its major themes, its social and political implications, and the reasons for its eventual demise as a movement. Essential readings from the three major deistic periodicals of the period—Temple of Reason, Prospect, and the Theophilanthropist—also are included in the volume. This is the first time they have been reprinted since their original publication. American deism is more than merely an antiquated philosophical position possessing only historical interest, Walters contends. Its search for a religion based upon the ideals of reason, nature, and humanitarianism, rather than the blind faith, scriptural inerrancy, and miracles preached by Christian churches at the time, continues to offer insight of real significance.

The first edition of this award-winning reference, published in 1977, contained 425 biographical profiles of the most significant American religious figures. This new edition includes profiles for 125 additional people, and the earlier biographical sketches have been revised and updated. The volume includes religious leaders who died before July 1, 1992. Among its pages are entries for reformers, philosophers, social activists, doers and dreamers. While many of the people are mainstream, white ordained clergymen, many more stand outside traditional denominations and reflect the cultural and religious diversity of modern America. The result is a systematic overview of 400 years of American religion from the colonial period to the present day. Each profile begins with a capsule summary of the chief events in that person's life. The biographical essay that follows places the basic facts of the figure's life within the larger context of American religious history. A bibliography of the most significant works by and about the figure concludes each entry. Appendices at the end of the work categorize each individual by religious denomination and by place of birth.

A major intellectual history of the American Revolution and its influence on later revolutions in Europe and the Americas The Expanding Blaze is a sweeping history of how the American Revolution inspired revolutions throughout Europe and the Atlantic world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Jonathan Israel, one of the world’s leading historians of the Enlightenment, shows how the radical ideas of American founders such as Paine, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, and Monroe set the pattern for democratic revolutions, movements, and constitutions in France, Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Greece, Canada, Haiti, Brazil, and Spanish America. The Expanding Blaze reminds us that the American Revolution was an astonishingly radical event—and that it didn’t end with the transformation and independence of America. Rather, the Revolution continued to reverberate in Europe and the Americas for the next three-quarters of a century. This comprehensive history of the Revolution’s international influence traces how American efforts to implement Radical Enlightenment ideas—including the destruction of the old regime and the promotion of democratic republicanism, self-government, and liberty—helped drive revolutions abroad, as foreign leaders explicitly followed the American example and espoused American democratic values. The first major new intellectual history of the age of democratic revolution in decades, The Expanding Blaze returns the American Revolution to its global context.

“A Gay Epiphany” is basically my autobiography, the autobiography of a “man of no importance”, but it is really much more than that. It covers a 55 year journey beginning with an innocent young child’s search for God, complicated by the conflicting dogmas and interpretations of institutional Christianity and coupled with growing up gay in the 1950’s and 60’s. The book covers the struggles of a young man who wants only to serve God, but who meets with nothing but religious hostility and condemnation from institutional Christianity due to his homosexuality. It addresses many areas of study including comparative religion, Eastern philosophy, New Age, The Christian Right, politics, The American Dream, fundamentalism, misinterpretation of religious texts, authenticity of the Bible itself and many other related topics quoting from specialists in those fields of study. It is an appeal to religious leaders, parents, educators and legislators to show more compassion towards gay men and women and grant them the full respect and equality to which they are entitled under a secular democracy. It is my gift to my gay brothers and sisters who may still be struggling with how to integrate their sexual identity with their spirituality. It is also intended as my gift to those in the heterosexual community who still may be struggling with which spiritual path, out of the hundreds that exist, would be most advantageous to their spiritual growth. One can either choose a path which believes that “the glass is half empty” or a path which believes that the “glass is half full.”

In a world where religion is seen as a major component of political conflict, there is the need for a regenerated deism to act as an over-arching religious and ethically-based movement to restore peace and security.

"The Catalogue ... has been prepared with a view to accomplish two objects. One, to offer an inventory of all the books on the shelves of the Reference Department of the Manchester Free Library: the other, to supply ... a ready Key both to the subjects of the books, and to the names of the authors." - v. 1, the compiler to the reader.

The Encyclopedia of American Philosophy provides coverage of the major figures, concepts, historical periods and traditions in American philosophical thought. Containing over 600 entries written by scholars who are experts in the field, this Encyclopedia is the first of its kind. It is a scholarly reference work that is accessible to the ordinary reader by explaining complex ideas in simple terms and providing ample cross-references to facilitate further study. The Encyclopedia of American Philosophy contains a thorough analytical index and will serve as a standard, comprehensive reference work for universities and colleges. Topics covered include: Great philosophers: Emerson, Dewey, James, Royce, Peirce, Santayana Subjects: Pragmatism, Progress, the Future, Knowledge, Democracy, Growth, Truth Influences on American Philosophy: Hegel, Aristotle, Plato, British Enlightenment, Reformation Self-Assessments: Joe Margolis, Donald Davidson, Susan Haack, Peter Hare, John McDermott, Stanley Cavell Ethics: Value, Pleasure, Happiness, Duty, Judgment, Growth Political Philosophy: Declaration of Independence, Democracy, Freedom, Liberalism, Community, Identity