The Politics of Benevolence

This book examines the phenomenal wave of revivals which swept the early nineteenth century, and shows the impact they had on several ideological movements. This study asks whether religious beliefs genuinely influence people's political positions or whether, instead, what appear to be religious motivations for political behavior are merely an outgrowth of their social positions. This book establihes the influence of religious beliefs and the revivalist movement on the political behavior of the past century.