The Associated Press last week reviewed a new college history book, Unto a Good Land: A History of the American People (Eerdmans). Focusing on social and cultural history, the book is different because of its coverage of the impact of religion on American history. The book is nonsectarian, and covers both the good and bad impact religion has had from pre-Columbian times to present in the U.S.
The same publisher-- Eerdmans-- has also recently published Geiko Muller-Fahrenholz, America's Battle for God: A European Christian Looks at Civil Religion (2006).
UPDATE: Sunday's New York Times reviews Chris Hedges, American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America, (Free Press). Reviewer Rick Perlstein says that Hedges "writes on this subject as a neophyte, and pads out his dispatches with ungrounded theorizing, unconvincing speculation and examples that fall far short of bearing out his thesis."
