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...

The First Comprehensive History of Transcendentalism American Transcendentalism is a comprehensive narrative history of America's first group of public intellectuals, the men and women who defined American literature and indelibly marked American reform in the decades before and following the America Civil War. Philip F. Gura masterfully traces their intellectual genealogy to transatlantic religious and philosophical ideas, illustrating how these...

The Pequot Indian intellectual, author, and itinerant preacher William Apess was one the most important voices of the nineteenth century. Here, Philip F. Gura offers the first book-length chronicle of Apess' fascinating and consequential life. After an impoverished childhood marked by abuse, Apess soldiered with American troops during the War of 1812, converted to Methodism, and rose to fame as a lecturer who lifted a powerful voice of protest against...