Religious Liberties

"The author's thesis is that anti-Catholicism was one, if not the, defining factor in the development of American national identity from the Revolution to at least the end of the 19th century. She cites numerous authors of fiction and politics to illustrate her thesis, and she concludes that anti-Catholicism eventually revealed the limits and innate contradictions of American liberal democracy... [T]his book provides ample justification for her thesis and is a pleasure to read." --The Heythrop Review "Religious Liberties is an imaginative investigation of anti-Catholicism's centrality to American political culture. The reading of literary texts is especially illuminating, as is Fenton's sweep across the entire nineteenth century." --John T. McGreevy, University of Notre Dame "In her study of how anti-Catholic rhetoric helped shape U.S. liberal democracy in its early years, Fenton explores the manifold paradoxes inherent in Protestant denunciations of the 'tyrannical' Catholic even as the emerging republic viewed itself as capable of absorbing all differences into an ideal of national unity. Clearly argued and engagingly written, Fenton's study provides a much-needed resource on this surprisingly neglected area so important to the formation of American culture." --Mary R. Reichardt, University of St. Thomas "Religious Liberties is beautifully conceived and tightly wrought. In three shrewdly organized sections, Fenton establishes the centrality of anti-Catholicism to liberalism as a political practice, and traces the historical arc of their interwoven careers from the American Revolution to just before the Spanish-American War. This book will open up important new areas of scholarly conversation across a number of fields." --Tracy Fessenden, Arizona State University "Through this illuminating study of nineteenth-century anti-Catholicism, Fenton thus ironically establishes the centrality of Catholicism to the development of key ideas about religion and freedom that form the patchwork of the nation."--American Catholic Studies "Fenton has offered a much-needed study of anti-Catholicism in particular and the limits of representative democracy in general. Religious tolerance is central to America's national identity, but, as Fenton has shown, such a commitment has required intolerance. This bespeaks a sobering but important question. Can humans create truly tolerant societies?"--The Catholic Historical Review