Atheists in American Politics

Richard Meagher’s Atheists in American Politics: Social Movement Organizing from the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Centuries is the latest in a burst of academic treatments of the history of atheist and anti-religious movements, joining Richard Cimino and Christopher Smith, Leigh Eric Schmidt, Stephen LeDrew, Tim Whitmarsh, and others. Meagher’s study complements its predecessors, adding to a burgeoning survey of American irreligion and the difficulties of historicizing manifestations of religious disbelief. Meagher’s book aims to frame the recent emergence of American atheism as a political force. Meagher shows how opponents of American religion have consistently struggled to establish a unified identity and how they have lacked political resources and opportunities. Meagher’s history begins with the meager successes of the nineteenth century Freethought movement, including the speaking tours of Robert Ingersoll and regional periodicals The Index and The Truth Seeker. Meagher follows Freethought into the mid-twentieth century, where it dissolves into various “one-man organizations,” each roughly as politically inert as the other. For Meagher, Freethought is politically passive, as prominent figures were unwilling or unable to compel their followers to real political action.

Political science · Politics · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Catholicism and Religious Studies · Law · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions · Religious studies