DOC The ''Chosen'' Ones: Perception of Malcolm and Martin by Gabriel A. Scott in History

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Finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction “A page turner…We have long needed a fair-minded overview of this vitally important religious sensibility; and FitzGerald has now provided it.” —The New York Times Book Review “Massively learned and electrifying…magisterial.” —The Christian Science Monitor This groundbreaking book from Pulitzer Prize­–winning historian Frances FitzGerald is the first to tell the powerful; dramatic story of the Evangelical movement in America—from the Puritan era to the 2016 presidential election.The evangelical movement began in the revivals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; known in America as the Great Awakenings. A populist rebellion against the established churches; it became the dominant religious force in the country. During the nineteenth century white evangelicals split apart dramatically; first North versus South; and then at the end of the century; modernist versus fundamentalist. After World War II; Billy Graham; the revivalist preacher; attracted enormous crowds and tried to gather all Protestants under his big tent; but the civil rights movement and the social revolution of the sixties drove them apart again. By the 1980s Jerry Falwell and other southern televangelists; such as Pat Robertson; had formed the Christian right. Protesting abortion and gay rights; they led the South into the Republican Party; and for thirty-five years they were the sole voice of evangelicals to be heard nationally. Eventually a younger generation of leaders protested the Christian right’s close ties with the Republican Party and proposed a broader agenda of issues; such as climate change; gender equality; and immigration reform. Evangelicals have in many ways defined the nation. They have shaped our culture and our politics. Frances FitGerald’s narrative of this distinctively American movement is a major work of history; piecing together the centuries-long story for the first time. Evangelicals now constitute twenty-five percent of the American population; but they are no longer monolithic in their politics. They range from Tea Party supporters to social reformers. Still; with the decline of religious faith generally; FitzGerald suggests that evangelical churches must embrace ethnic minorities if they are to survive.