God's Businessmen: Entrepreneurial Evangelicals in Depression and War
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.91 (763 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 022650977X |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 240 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2013-03-19 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Hammond presents a capacious portrait of the relationship between the evangelical business community and the New Deal—and in doing so makes important contributions to American religious history, business history, and the history of the American state.. What’s less well-known, however, is that the connection predates the Reagan revolution, going all the way back to the Depression and World War II. In God’s Businessmen, Sarah Ruth Hammond explores not only these men’s personal trajectories but also those of the service clubs and other institutions that, like them, believed that businessmen were God’s instrument for the Christianization of the world. Like previous generations of devout laymen, they self-consciously merged their religious and business lives, financing and organizing evangelical causes with the kind of visionary pragmatism that they practiced in the boardroom. Evangelical businessmen at the time were quite active in opposing the New Deal—on both theological and economic grounds—and in doing so claimed a place alongside other conservatives in the public sphere. The evangelical embrace of conservatism is a familiar feature of the contemporary political landscape
“Well-researched and well-argued, God’s Businessmen builds well on the recent literature on the intersection of religion, business, and politics and advances the field in important new directions. It is, in short, a triumph.”. Equally well-written, it will appeal not just to interested academics but to educated general audiences as well