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Sword of the spirit, shield of faith : religion in American war and diplomacy / Andrew Preston.

by Preston, Andrew, 1973-

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New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2012.

Religion and international relations -- United States -- History.

United States -- Foreign relations.

United States -- Foreign relations -- Religious aspects.

United States -- Military policy -- Religious aspects.

United States -- History, Military -- Religious aspects.

xi, 815 p. ; 25 cm.

Pt. 1: In the beginning. Defenders of the faith ; God is an excellent man of war ; Wars of permanent reformation -- pt. 2: The American revelation. The harmony of the world confounded ; Liberation theology -- pt. 3: Imperial destinies. Absolutist apostasies ; The benevolent empire, at home and abroad ; Manifest Destiny and its discontents -- pt. 4: America's mission. Abraham Lincoln and the first war of humanitarian intervention ; Missionaries and the imperialism of human rights ; An also chosen people ; Cuba, the Philippines, and the First Crusade -- pt. 5: Woodrow Wilson and the Second Crusade. The idealistic synthesis ; Onward Christian soldiers ; The Wilsonian creed -- pt. 6: Franklin Roosevelt and the Third Crusade. Princes of peace and prophets of realism ; The simple faith of Franklin Roosevelt ; The Holocaust and the moral meaning of the war ; Spiritual diplomacy ; The church unmilitant ; John Foster Dulles and the quest for a just and durable peace -- pt. 7: The Cold War and the Fourth Crusade. The faith of Harry Truman and the theology of George Kennan ; High priests of the Cold War : Eisenhower and the second coming of Dulles ; The great schism and the myth of consensus -- pt. 8: Reformation and counterreformation. The revolutionary church in a revolutionary age ; The valley of the shadow of death ; Get thee behind me, Satan ; A Judeo-Christian foreign policy ; Ronald the Lionheart -- Epilogue: The last crusade?

A richly detailed story of how religion has influenced American foreign relations, told through the stories of the men and women--from presidents to preachers--who have plotted the country's course in the world. Ever since John Winthrop argued that the Puritans' new home would be "a city upon a hill," Americans' role in the world has been shaped by their belief that God has something special in mind for them. But this is a story that historians have mostly ignored. Now, in the first authoritative work on the subject, Andrew Preston explores the major strains of religious fervor--liberal and conservative, pacifist and militant, internationalist and isolationist--that framed American thinking on international issues from the earliest colonial wars to the twenty-first century, and he arrives at some startling conclusions.--From publisher description.

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