Kevin Kruse – One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America
In this show, I speak with Princeton history professor, Kevin Kruse. Professor Kruse is the author of White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism, and the subject of Saturday’s show, One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America, released on April 14th.
Professor Kruse originally set out to write a book on the rise of the religious right, which he assumed would focus on Americans’ fear of the “godless Communists” of the Cold War. He discovered however that this generally accepted theory missed the mark, and that it was in fact corporate America that used religious beliefs to promote propaganda decades earlier that would tie religion and neoliberal capitalism together. The phrase “One Nation Under God,” and “In God We Trust” did not stem solely from fear during the Cold War, but was instead promoted, organized, and funded by corporate interests.
The Author
Kevin M. Kruse is a Princeton history professor, studying the political, social, and urban/suburban history of 20th-century America, with particular interest in the making of modern conservatism. Focused on conflicts over race, rights, and religion, he also studies the postwar South and modern suburbia. He is also a member of the Executive Committee of the Center for the Study of Religion.
Professor Kruse is the author of White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism (2005), as well as co-editor of three collections: The New Suburban History (Historical Studies of Urban America)
His first book, White Flight, won prizes including the 2007 Francis B. Simkins Award from the Southern Historical Association (for the best first book in Southern history, 2005-2006) and the 2007 Best Book Award in Urban Politics from the American Political Science Association. In addition, Professor Kruse has been honored as one of America’s top young “Innovators in the Arts and Sciences” by the Smithsonian Magazine, selected as one of the top young historians in the country by the History News Network, and named a Distinguished Lecturer by the Organization of American Historians.
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