Books like The Great Agnostic by Susan Jacoby
Susan Jacoby’s biography resurrects Robert Green Ingersoll, a leading American secularist who spoke out for the separation of church and state during the Gilded Age. The book chronicles Ingersoll’s public career and his advocacy of reason, liberty of conscience, and progressive social issues such as women’s rights, immigration, racism and evolution. Jacoby places him in a continuum of American libertarian thinkers from Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine to contemporary free‑thinkers.
Key to understanding America’s historical debate over its religious foundations, Ingersoll’s life and philosophy offer a counter‑narrative to the idea that the United States was founded as a Christian nation. The book underscores the enduring relevance of secular ideas in shaping modern public discourse.
First publish date: 2013
Genre: Biography & Autobiography/Biography
Authors: Susan Jacoby
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Some Other Similar Books
God Is Not Great: How Religion Divides Us and What We Can Do About It by Christopher HitchensBreaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by Daniel Dennett
The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan
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