The Work We Have to Do: A History of Protestants in America

A readable, far-reaching history of a multi-denominational, multi-regional, and multi-ethnic religious group, Protestants in America explores the physical and ideological roots of the denomination up to the present day, and traces the origins of American Protestants all the way back to the first English colony at Jamestown. The book covers their involvement in critical issues from temperance to the civil rights movement, the establishment of Protestant organizations like the American Bible Society and the Salvation Army, and the significant expansion of their ethnic base since the first African-American Protestant churches were built in the 1770s. Mark Noll follows their direct impact on American history–from the American Revolution to World War I and beyond–and peppers his account with profiles of leading Protestants, from Jonathan Edwards and Phillis Wheatley to Billy Graham and Martin Luther King, Jr.