Description: A journey through American history that reveals an unsettling pattern of religious intolerance, from colonial anti-Quaker sentiment to modern-day Islamophobia
Brief description: Peter Gottschalk is the chair of the Religion department at Wesleyan University. He is the co-author of the scholarly text Islamophobia: Making Muslims the Enemy, which examines the depiction of Muslims in political cartoons. It was reviewed in The New York Times Book Review, and he was interviewed on CNN, NPR, Air America, and Voice of America, and was featured in USA Today, and The Washington Post's "On Faith" website. He lives in Middletown, CT.
Review Quotes:
"This book is a fascinating historical journey for anyone with an interest in history, religion and community." --Press Association
"Eclectic examples from the ample album of bigotry in American democracy." --Kirkus Reviews "A must read in a 21st century when religious pluralism and religious intolerance are a global challenge. Peter Gottschalk's American Heretics is a unique and powerful study and critique, a corrective to many American's amnesia about our past history of religious intolerance and, in his last chapter, a wakeup call to 'The Sum of All Fears: Islamophobia and Anti-Muslim Sentiment.'" --John L. Esposito, author of The Future of Islam and Islamophobia and the Challenge of Pluralism. "American Heretics is a heartfelt plea to Americans to take responsibility for their xenophobia and racism. Gottschalk is relentless in presenting the grimy shame of U.S. nativism, giving new detail to both past and current events we thought we knew, all the while insisting that all Americans share in this shame." --Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, Chair, Department of Religious Studies, Indiana University Bloomington