Book cover of The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America

Book description

* Winner of the 2017 National Book Critics Circle Award
* National Book Award Finalist
* Time magazine Top 10 Nonfiction Book of the Year
* New York Times Notable Book
* Publishers Weekly Best Books of 2017

"A page turner...We have long needed a fair-minded overview of this…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked The Evangelicals as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This Pulitzer prize-winning history, thoroughly researched and engagingly written, is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the history of American evangelicalism. While it now defines the religious right, evangelicalism has espoused different religious and political positions from its eighteenth-century founding to the present, as Fitzgerald thoroughly documents. Initially, a populist rejection of established churches, in the nineteenth-century evangelicals split over the issue of slavery; Southern evangelicals insisted that the Bible endorsed it. In the twentieth century, evangelicals separated from fundamentalists and became more politically engaged as American business interests used religion to wrest evangelicals from the Democratic Party…

From Kathleen's list on the Christian Right as a political power.

If you love The Evangelicals...

Book cover of These Blue Mountains

These Blue Mountains by Sarah Loudin Thomas,

A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.

German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…

Want books like The Evangelicals?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like The Evangelicals.

Browse books like The Evangelicals

Book cover of Inventing a Christian America: The Myth of the Religious Founding
Book cover of From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain-Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism
Book cover of Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation

Share your top 3 reads of 2025!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,366

readers submitted
so far, will you?

📚 If you like The Evangelicals, you might also like...

Book cover of The Duke's Christmas Redemption

The Duke's Christmas Redemption by Arietta Richmond,

A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.

Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…

Book cover of Coyote Weather

Coyote Weather by Amanda Cockrell,

Coyote weather is the feral, hungry season, drought-stricken, and ready to catch fire. It’s 1967, and the American culture is violently remaking itself while the country is forcibly sending its young men to fight in a deeply unpopular war.

Jerry has stubbornly made no plans for the future because he…

5 book lists we think you will like!