One Nation, Under Gods

Starred review from November 10, 2014
The last few decades have produced several magisterial tomes on American religious history, from such authors as Sydney Ahlstrom and Edwin Gaustad. None, however, matches the subversive and much-needed revisionism of Manseau's tour de force. Arguing that "we have learned history from the middle rather than the margins... from which so much of our culture has been formed," Manseau (Rag and Bone; Vows) undertakes a thorough reimagining of our nation's religions. Christopher Columbus, in this telling, is not nearly so interesting as contemporaneous Moorish and Jewish conquistadores, who were already accustomed to cultural pluralism; Mormon founder Joseph Smith was influenced not so much by the revivalist Protestantism of western New York as by the legacy of the Iroquois spiritual leader Handsome Lake; and the Salem witch trials are evidence of Puritans' inability to stamp out persistent folk beliefs and practices from the Old World. Indeed, Manseau suggests, "a spectrum of beliefs has shaped our common history since well before the first president." Engagingly written, with a historian's eye for detail and a novelist's sense of character and timing, this history from another perspective reexamines familiar tales and introduces fascinating counternarratives. Agent: Kathleen Anderson, Anderson Literary Management.

November 1, 2014
Smithsonian fellow Manseau (Rag and Bone: A Journey Among the World's Holy Dead, 2009, etc.) unspools a web of gods who have had an impact on the development of the United States.The dominant Christian narrative that runs through the history of the United States was written by Christians. What the author endeavors to do here-and does so with deep-running stories told with verve and dash-is to square that narrative with a religious syncretism that provides a more colorful, distinct, eccentric, not to mention truthful, historical record. In each chapter, Manseau addresses a single topic, though they gradually spread a maze of intersections and dynamics. "[T]he repeated collision of conflicting systems of belief, followed frequently by ugly and violent conflict," writes the author, "has somehow arrived, again and again, not merely at peaceful coexistence but striking moments of inter-influence." Manseau takes on a great company of iconoclasts, from Eric the Red to North African Muslims and Chinese from the Middle Kingdom, all of who arrived in American before Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue. From the undaunted Anne Hutchinson's antinomianism, the author pivots to the healers from Africa who faced smallpox with their history of inoculation. Early on, Thomas Jefferson knew that religious systems interacted, intimately and transformatively. Eventually, there would come Shakers and Mormons, Hindus and Buddhists, Sikhs and Scientologists. Manseau does not paint a peaceable kingdom; it has always been riven by exclusion leagues, immigration acts, dreadful violence and banishments. His point is that there has always existed an undeniable "inter-influence," that the atmosphere of the country couldn't help but be shaped and reshaped by its disorderly moments with those who found themselves here for religious reasons. An eye-opener. After reading Manseau, readers will see the influences he writes about not only dot, but shape, the landscape.

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Starred review from December 1, 2014

America's foundational theocracy is often portrayed as "an Exodus story within the scripture of American history: England as Egypt; the ocean as desert," says Manseau (fellow, Smithsonian; coauthor, Believer, Beware). But the truth of America's religious history isn't limited to the Christians who staked claim, sometimes violently, to already occupied land. Buried in the margins is a broader picture: one of Jews and Muslims, passive colonists, skeptical Puritans, and fervent atheists--most of whom have been lost to the more nationalistic, one-dimensional view of America as Christians' chosen nation, but all of whom played a vital role in building the country and nurturing its freedoms. Manseau explains that, "if not for those on the margins of the dominant faith...the freedoms the majority takes for granted might be strangled in a noose of selective toleration." The author takes readers from Christopher Columbus to President Barack Obama with accessible and insightful prose that offers a truer picture of America's supposed ordained authority and a richer, more complex, and compelling viewpoint that is reminiscent of Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States. VERDICT This significant and timely work is important for those who wish to understand the complete and diverse landscape of religious history in America--but even more valuable for those who don't.--Erin Entrada Kelly, Philadelphia, PA

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2014
The first presidential inaugural address to acknowledge the religious diversity of the U.S. was Barack Obama's in 2009. The reality, the president noted, predates the Republic itself. Manseau demonstrates this in 17 profilesin courage, among other qualitiesof individuals and groups who introduced or attested to the presence of many religions in North America. The first is the worstColumbus, who brought ruthless imperialist Catholicism. The others and their faiths are mostly more benign, including the Puritans and ever-fractionating Protestantism; business entrepreneur Jacob Lumbrozo and Judaism; enslaved Africans Omar ibn Said, Ayuba Suleiman Diallo, and Abd al-Rahman and Islam; and Seneca chief Handsome Lake, whose revelatory visions rescued him from alcoholism and anticipated Joseph Smith's Mormonism. Novelist and biographer (of his own family in Vows, 2005) as well as religious historian, Manseau artfully packs each profile with context, adding the occasional soupon of drama to ensure maximal, enthralling readability. In conclusion, Manseau revisits the religio-political image of the city on the hill to ask whether it might be replaced by a hole in the ground.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)