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Full Description
The United States has long thought of itself as exceptional--a nation destined to lead the world into a bright and glorious future. These ideas go back to the Puritan belief that Massachusetts would be a "city on a hill," and in time that image came to define the United States and the American mentality. But what is at the root of these convictions? John Howard Smith's A Dream of the Judgment Day explores the origins of beliefs about the biblical end of the world as Americans have come to understand them, and how these beliefs led to a conception of the United States as an exceptional nation with a unique destiny to fulfill. However, these beliefs implicitly and explicitly excluded African Americans and American Indians because they didn't fit white Anglo-Saxon ideals. While these groups were influenced by these Christian ideas, their exclusion meant they had to craft their own versions of millenarian beliefs. Women and other marginalized groups also played a far larger role than usually acknowledged in this phenomenon, greatly influencing the developing notion of the United States as the "redeemer nation."
Smith's comprehensive history of eschatological thought in early America encompasses traditional and non-traditional Christian beliefs in the end of the world. It reveals how millennialism and apocalypticism played a role in destructive and racist beliefs like "Manifest Destiny," while at the same time influencing the foundational idea of the United States as an "elect nation." Featuring a broadly diverse cast of historical figures, A Dream of the Judgment Day synthesizes more than forty years of scholarship into a compelling and challenging portrait of early America.
Contents
Acknowledgments
List of Figures
Introduction
"The Birth of a New Millennium"
Chapter 1
"The Woman in the Wilderness"
Chapter 2
"The Glorious Day Is Coming On"
Chapter 3
"The Prophecy of Daniel Is now Literally Fulfilling"
Chapter 4
"The Earth Would Become as New Again"
Chapter 5
"Lightnings and Thunderings, and Voices"
Chapter 6
"I Will Multiply them and they Shall not Be Few"
Chapter 7
"Groaning for the Latter Day"
Chapter 8
"The Nation's Hoop is Broken and Scattered"
Conclusion
"On the Very Bring of Destruction"
Bibliograpy
Notes
Index
