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IMAGINING HEAVEN AND HELL: RELIGION, NATIONAL IDENTITY, AND U.S. FOREIGN RELATIONS, 1930-1953

Zietsma, David

Abstract Details

2007, Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, History.
This dissertation argues that religiously framed narratives of national identity conditioned the United States approach to the world from 1930 to 1953. When the Great Depression called into question U.S. manifest destiny, Americans reified their divine chosenness first through a “good neighbor” national image and later through a narrative imagining the United States as a righteous nation battling evil enemies. During the Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman administrations, competing religious groups/organizations provided the language and images through which national these identity narratives attained their form. The destabilizing impact of the Depression allowed the temporary ascendance of Protestant liberal modernist discourse and an attendant surge in popularity for cooperative internationalism. When the good neighbor narrative failed to reconcile Americans’ experience in the world with their neighborly picture of the world, a gradual shift toward the language/imagery of neo-orthodox realism occurred as Americans began imagining the United States as a righteous defender against the evil Axis powers. World War II empowered fundamentalist Christianity, enabling a postwar transition that gradually marginalized the vestiges of pre-war religious modernism and again depicted the United States as a righteous nation, this time battling the godless Soviet Union on behalf of God-ordained free market economics and political democracy.
Walter Hixson (Advisor)
495 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Zietsma, D. (2007). IMAGINING HEAVEN AND HELL: RELIGION, NATIONAL IDENTITY, AND U.S. FOREIGN RELATIONS, 1930-1953 [Doctoral dissertation, University of Akron]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron1185381373

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Zietsma, David. IMAGINING HEAVEN AND HELL: RELIGION, NATIONAL IDENTITY, AND U.S. FOREIGN RELATIONS, 1930-1953. 2007. University of Akron, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron1185381373.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Zietsma, David. "IMAGINING HEAVEN AND HELL: RELIGION, NATIONAL IDENTITY, AND U.S. FOREIGN RELATIONS, 1930-1953." Doctoral dissertation, University of Akron, 2007. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron1185381373

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)