In the mid-eighteenth century; Americans experienced an outbreak of religious revivals that shook colonial society. This book provides a definitive view of these revivals; now known as the First Great Awakening; and their dramatic effects on American culture. Historian Thomas S. Kidd tells the absorbing story of early American evangelical Christianity through the lives of seminal figures like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield as well as many previously unknown preachers; prophets; and penitents. The Great Awakening helped create the evangelical movement; which heavily emphasized the individual’s experience of salvation and the Holy Spirit’s work in revivals. By giving many evangelicals radical notions of the spiritual equality of all people; the revivals helped breed the democratic style that would come to characterize the American republic. Kidd carefully separates the positions of moderate supporters of the revivals from those of radical supporters; and he delineates the objections of those who completely deplored the revivals and their wildly egalitarian consequences. The battles among these three camps; the author shows; transformed colonial America and ultimately defined the nature of the evangelical movement.
#467013 in Books imusti 2014-05-27Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 8.25 x .94 x 5.75l; .98 #File Name: 0300136625256 pagesYale University Press
Review
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful. The ProphetBy David ShulmanHillel Halkin brings to life in a short and very readable biography; the story of Vladimir Jabotinsky (1880-1940); the founder of Revisionist Zionism. Jabotinsky was far from the prototypical Zionist of the early 20th Century. Being born in the cosmopolitan port city of Odessa; he was far from the shtetls of Poland and Russia. He was far from religious and didn’t really like living in the Palestine of the 1920s.Nevertheless he was extraordinarily clear-eyed about the future of Zionism. Jabotinsky understood:• The real need for Jewish Legion to assist in the British invasion of Ottoman Palestine thereby establishing the first organized Jewish fighting force in nearly 2000 years.• The local Arab population would not be passive to a surge in Jewish immigration. He leads in the formation of the Haganah out of the remnants of the Jewish Legion. The Haganah was the forerunner of today’s Israel Defense Forces.• The Nazi nightmare would wipe out European Jewry and urged the Jewish community to pack up and leave. He supplied chartered steamers to illegally transport Jews to Palestine.• The Israeli economy organized along the socialist lines of Labor Zionism would not be viable and urged more market oriented policies.Halkin discusses in great detail Jabotinsky’s long time and very acrid rivalry with David Ben Gurion. They fought each other for control of the Zionist Organization in the 1930s. To put it mildly they did not like each other and Ben Gurion prevented Jabotinsky’s reburial in Israel until after he stepped down as prime minister in 1964.A failing of the book is that Halkin expends too many words on Jabotinsky the journalist and the writer and not enough on his leading his Revisionist Zionist group and his founding of Betar; its youth group. Menachem Begin was so inspired by Jabotinsky that he joined and became a leader of Betar. Nevertheless I would recommend “Jabotinsky†for those readers who want to go beyond the standard Labor Zionist version of the founding of the State of Israel. A great companion piece would be Daniel Gordis’; “Menachem Begin: The Battle for Israel’s Soul.â€1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Right-Wing ProphetBy Eric MaroneyJabotinsky; a life; explores the life and work of Vladimir Jabotinsky (1880–1940). All too often in Zionist studies; Jabotinsky and the movement he created; Revisionist Zionism; is given short shrift in the official narrative of the creation of the State of Israel. In fact many of his very early pronouncements on the struggle between Jews and Arabs in Palestine have proven to be prophetically true; and his political descendants have more or less ruled Israel since the late 1970s.Hillel Harkin wants to set the record straight in this biography; showing that Jabotinsky was not quite the Jewish fascist which his opponents claimed. Rather; he was a man of many dramatic and self-contradictory impulses. An ardent Zionist nationalist; he lived in Palestine on and off; but appeared to prefer the cosmopolitan life of Paris to the rustic Holy Land. He fought hard for a robust; military Zionism; one expressed in the armed wing of his movement; the Irgun; but he was against tit-for-tat revenge attaches by Jews upon Arabs and urged restraint. He was not nearly as radical as the organization he helped found.This is an excellent book to read it you want to get at the bedrock foundation of right wing Israel politics. Jabotinsky is the political father of Bibi Netanyahu; yet; as Harkin points out; it is difficult to say if Jabotinsky; if he was alive today; would have agreed with all the policies and opinions of those on the Israel right. He was far too independent minded and worldly to take narrow or parochial views on most geopolitical. He could embrace the little picture while keeping an eye on the wider field of events. His successors appear to lack this vital trait; to their detriment.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Required reading for student of ZionismBy Yitzhak HaLevyI would give this book 5 stars as a historical resource and less than three stars if I was ranking it as an enjoyable read. This book reads as more of an academic dissertation and requires a level of focus to really work your way through it. True; I discovered many new things about Ze'ev that I never knew before including how much he differed from Theodore Herzl and some of the other founders of Israel and how close the Zionist movement came to imploding during it's earlier years. However; I didn't find reading it very enjoyable.If you have a keen interest of the giants of Israel's foundation and absolutely buy this book. You'll find it well researched and well laid out but beware; it takes effort to read.
