Free-Thought on the American Frontier

Book Overview

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• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0879756985
• ISBN13: 9780879756987
• Release Date: January 1992
• Publisher: Prometheus Books
• Length: 314 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.2" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

essential history: inspiring -- and fun

Whitehead and Muhrer (from both sides of the state line in Kansas City) have delivered a well-organized and helpfully-introduced sample of free-thought writing from the time of settlement in the American West (including parts of the South, notably Texas). It's a highly useful point of entry for acquiring a sense of the historical continuity in the fight for free thought in the U.S. It's also highly entertaining: the writing (both of the original authors, and of the anthologists) has an engaging edge to it -- witty, and often hilarious. Most importantly, it's an inspiring reminder of how courageous some of our forebears were in defending against the depredations of religious totalitarians who sought to intimidate new communities into conformity with their dogmatically-grounded social views.

(Lack Of) Faith Of Our Fathers

This anthology of free-thought essays and humor effectively destroys the notion that American secularism and progressive-thought are twentieth-century developments. Foremost among these selections is Mark Twain's hilarious description of the Christian heaven: everybody sings boisterously, play harps incessantly, are forced to love & hug all those that they disdain in this life, are denied sexual pleasure for eternity, and are utterly compelled to dispense with their intellect. Sounds wonderful, doesn't it?Another particularly powerful piece is by the black poet, Langston Hughes. Entitled "Salvation", Hughes describes his boyhood experience of fabricating belief in Jesus with powerful lyricism. Clarence Darrow, of Scopes Monkey trial fame, also has a moving essay concerning the failures of his father. Robert Ingersoll's essay, "Why I Am An Agnostic" is a powerful and utterly convincing argument and the cartoons of Watson Heston are very funny and still painfully relevant. Perhaps the most impressive essay is "The Village Atheist", penned by Emanuel Haldeman-Julius. This interesting person edited a free-thought newspaper and published "Little Blue Book" pamphlets that allowed lower-income folk to own classics by Shakespeare & Thomas Paine, as well as taking on the draconian J. Edgar Hoover in print.