Moral Majorities across the Americas: Brazil, the United States, and the Creation of the Religious Right

Cowan, professor of history at the University of California, San Diego, follows up his 2016 monograph Securing Sex with this persuasive study of evangelical Protestant conservatism in the Western hemisphere. Focusing on the relationship between right-wing religious and political conservatives in the United States and Brazil, Cowan constructs a nuanced argument that religious and political conservatism in these two countries are deeply entwined and often work in concert—most recently in the mutually admiring relationship between former U.S. president Donald Trump and Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro. Cowan starts his analysis in the 1950s with the international activities of American conservatives Carl McIntire and Paul Weyrich, who aimed to “construct a transnational New Right” through organizations such as the International Policy Forum. Cowan also highlights the response of Brazilian religious conservatives to Vatican II (1962–1965), arguing that Brazilian and American conservatives agreed on an essential vision centered on fear of “modernism,” which included communism, feminism, sexual liberation, and gay rights. This deeply researched, closely argued of work will be a valuable contribution to the field of conservative studies. (May)