Examining how economic change influences religion, and the way literature mediates that influence, this book provides a thorough reassessment of modern American culture. Focusing on the period 1840-1940, the author shows how the development of capitalism reshaped American Protestantism and addresses the necessary role of literature in that process.Arguing that the -spirit of capitalism- was not fostered by traditional Puritanism, Ball explores the ways that Christianity was transformed by the market and industrial revolutions. This book refutes the long-held secularization thesis by showing that modernity was a time when new forms of the sacred proliferated, and that this religious flourishing was essential to the production of American culture.Ball draws from the work of -ile Durkheim and cultural sociology to interpret modern social upheavals like religious awakenings, revivalism, and the labor movement. Examining work from writers like Rebecca Harding Davis, Jack London, and Countee
