Religion and the American Revolution: An Imperial History

“Carté has produced a study that needs to be read.”—Journal of American History

“Religion and American Revolution excels as a history of protestant power in and through the American Revolution . . . [that] compellingly examines and critiques the mechanisms and architecture by which protestants asserted themselves through networks, despite their religious rhetoric never having been a necessary cause for the American Revolution or the founding of the United States.”—American Religion

“Your reviewer does not use this word often, but Katherine Carté’s book . . . is brilliant. . . . By looking through an imperial lens Carté gives us a new and different perspective. This book warrants careful reading. Many things we thought we knew about the Revolution will have to be given a second look.”—Anglican and Episcopal History

“Perhaps the most extensive study of public religion across the British Empire in the Revolutionary era. . . . Religion and the American Revolution will stand as an important touchstone for historians of the American Revolution and historians of eighteenth-century religion.”—H-Early-America

“Carté’s book is valuable to anyone who wants to understand the role of established religion in the British Empire and the reasons why established religion was abandoned after the war. . . . Carefully researched, clearly written, and interesting to read.”—Journal of the American Revolution

“A timely Atlantic story [and] . . . a reorientation of how we should think about the nation’s founding.”—Society for U.S. Intellectual History

“[Carte’s] recovery of imperial Protestantism is a notable research achievement and a valuable addition to the new transatlantic assessment of the Revolution.”—Journal of Church and State

“A timely contribution to the historiography of the rise and fall of the first British Empire. . . . [F]uture scholars will be inspired by [Carté’s] findings.”—Church History

“Carté’s work encourages further engagement with a topic whose consequences reach far into the present.”—Journal for the History of Theology

“This book marks the full maturity of Atlantic history brought to bear on a subject of perennial interest: the place of religion in the American War of Independence. By focusing on ‘British imperial protestantism,’ Carté illuminates institutional religious life before, during, and after the Revolution on both sides of the Atlantic. It is simply a terrific book, a scholarly landmark that should decisively shape research on the subject for a very long time to come.” ― Mark Noll, University of Notre Dame

“This book marks the full maturity of Atlantic history brought to bear on a subject of perennial interest: the place of religion in the American War of Independence. By focusing on ‘British imperial protestantism,’ Carté illuminates institutional religious life before, during, and after the Revolution on both sides of the Atlantic. It is simply a terrific book, a scholarly landmark that should decisively shape research on the subject for a very long time to come.” — Mark Noll, University of Notre Dame