Can I read Heathen : religion and race in American history on EtoBox?

Heathen : religion and race in American history by Kathryn Gin Lum, Susan Baker is a nonfiction available to read on EtoBox.

What is Heathen : religion and race in American history about?

An innovative history that shows how the religious idea of the heathen in need of salvation undergirds American conceptions of race. If an eighteenth-century parson told you that the difference between "civilization and heathenism is sky-high and star-far," the words would hardly come as a shock. But that statement was written by an American missionary in 1971. In a sweeping historical narrative, Kathryn Gin Lum shows how the idea of the heathen has been maintained from the colonial era to the present in religious and secular discourses--discourses, specifically, of race. Americans long viewed the world as a realm of suffering heathens whose lands and lives needed their intervention to flourish. The term "heathen" fell out of common use by the early 1900s, leading some to imagine that racial categories had replaced religious differences. But the ideas underlying the figure of the heathen did not disappear. Americans still treat large swaths of the world as "other" due to their assumed need for conversion to American ways. Purported heathens have also contributed to the ongoing significance of the concept, promoting solidarity through their opposition to white American Christianity.

Who reads Heathen : religion and race in American history?

Author

Kathryn Gin Lum, Susan Baker

Publisher

Harvard University, Department of Sanskrit & Indian Studies

Published

2022

Language

EN

ISBN

9780674275782

Category

nonfiction

Subjects

Religion, Christian, Religious Studies