America's book: the rise and decline of a Bible civilization, 1794-1911

Introduction: The Bible in American history

Part I. Creating a Bible civilization. The Bible after independence and before Paine

The Paine provocation

Custodial Protestants versus sectarian Protestants

Francis Asbury and the Methodists

Part II. A Protestant Bible civilization. The Bible civilization in American history

Naming, writing, and speaking in a Hebrew republic

Publishing

Personal religion

The African American Bible

Part III. Fractures. Slavery and the Bible before the Missouri Compromise

Slavery and the Bible, 1819-1833

Democracy

The law and a Christian nation

The common school exception

Part IV. The eclipse of Sola scriptura. 1844

Whose Bible? (Catholic)

Whose Bible? (Lutherans, Jews, naysayers, natives)

Whose Bible? (women)

The war before the war

Scriptural arguments in context

The Civil War

Part V. After the Bible civilization. 1865-1875

The centennial divide: 1876 and after

Protestant wounds of war

Protestant realignments

Marginal no more (Jews and Catholics)

Part VI. Toward the present. Still a Bible nation

An enduring cultural landmark

Civil religion

Still under a bushel.