DOC Patriotic Pluralism: Americanization Education and European Immigrants by Jeffrey E. Mirel in History

Description

In the decades after World War II; evangelical Christianity nourished America’s devotion to free markets; free trade; and free enterprise. The history of Wal-Mart uncovers a complex network that united Sun Belt entrepreneurs; evangelical employees; Christian business students; overseas missionaries; and free-market activists. Through the stories of people linked by the world’s largest corporation; Bethany Moreton shows how a Christian service ethos powered capitalism at home and abroad.While industrial America was built by and for the urban North; rural Southerners comprised much of the labor; management; and consumers in the postwar service sector that raised the Sun Belt to national influence. These newcomers to the economic stage put down the plough to take up the bar-code scanner without ever passing through the assembly line. Industrial culture had been urban; modernist; sometimes radical; often Catholic and Jewish; and self-consciously international. Post-industrial culture; in contrast; spoke of Jesus with a drawl and of unions with a sneer; sang about Momma and the flag; and preached salvation in this world and the next. This extraordinary biography of Wal-Mart’s world shows how a Christian pro-business movement grew from the bottom up as well as the top down; bolstering an economic vision that sanctifies corporate globalization.The author has assigned her royalties and subsidiary earnings to Interfaith Worker Justice (www.iwj.org) and its local affiliate in Athens; GA; the Economic Justice Coalition (www.econjustice.org).