cover image The Spiritual-Industrial Complex: America's Religious Battle Against Communism in the Early Cold War

The Spiritual-Industrial Complex: America's Religious Battle Against Communism in the Early Cold War

Jonathan P. Herzog. Oxford Univ., $34.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-19-539346-0

Herzog, a new faculty fellow at the University of Oregon, starts with a review of trends in American religion through the 20th century. He argues that increased secularism throughout the 1910s and 1920s led to the state's taking the place of religion in the 1930s, and then examines the role that religion played in the early years of the cold war. Religion, the author maintains, was the defining difference between communism and the American way of life, a social proposition promoted by religious and political leaders alike. His analysis tackles such fascinating issues as the dynamic between Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish leaders reacting to the threat of communism; the use of personal religiosity among public figures as evidence of anticommunism; and contemporaneous critiques of the revival of interest in religion. Readers looking for more connections between this history and the role of religious rhetoric today will be disappointed by the overly brief epilogue, but Herzog's insights into the early years of the cold war are impressive, and the meticulously researched work represents a solid contribution to both the history of that era and the history of religion in America. (Aug.)