Philip F Gura

A riveting story of faith, politics, and ideas, Liberty or Justice for All? brings to life four of America's greatest thinkers, whose dialogue across the ages has never been more relevant. The book traces a striking pattern-the vexed relationship of individual liberty to inclusive social justice-in an elaborate fabric, woven over more than three centuries of American history. Philip F. Gura begins his nimble tale with Jonathan Edwards, a fiery preacher...

From the acclaimed cultural historian Philip F. Gura comes Truth's Ragged Edge, a comprehensive and original history of the American novel's first century. Grounded in Gura's extensive consideration of the diverse range of important early novels, not just those that remain widely read today, this book recovers many long-neglected but influential writers-such as the escaped slave Harriet Jacobs, the free black Philadelphian Frank J. Webb, and the irrepressible...

An important new biography of America's founding religious father. Jonathan Edwards was America's most influential evangelical, whose revivals of the 1730s became those against which all subsequent ones have been judged. The marvelous accomplishment of Philip Gura's Jonathan Edwards is to place the rich intellectual landscape of America's most formidable evangelical within the upheaval of his times. Gura not only captures Edwards' brilliance but...

Man's Better Angels explores the ideas that influenced antebellum reform efforts in the United States, especially after the social, political, and economic shocks the country suffered after the Panic of 1837. The Panic also galvanized reformers, encouraging some to act and others to act even more aggressively. Overwhelmingly, these reformers were animated by an ethic of individualism and self-reliance through which they believed social harmony was...