Head and Heart

New York Times bestselling author Garry Wills presents a landmark examination of Christianity's place in American life across the broad sweep of this country's history, from the Puritans to the presidential administration of George W. Bush. The struggle within American Christianity, now and throughout our country's history, is between the head and the heart: between reason and emotion, Enlightenment and Evangelicalism. Why has this been so? How has the tension between the two poles played out, and with what consequences, over the past 400 years? Wills brings a lifetime's worth of thought about these questions to bear on a magnificent historical reckoning that offers vitally needed perspective on some of the most contentious issues of our time. As Wills examines the key movements and personalities that have transformed America's religious landscape, the same pattern emerges again and again: a cooling of popular religious fervor followed by a grassroots explosion in Evangelical activity. But such forces inevitably go too far, interfering too much in American public life, causing a backlash, and the cycle begins again. In the end, Wills's abiding message is to be vigilant against the triumph of emotions over reason but to know that the tension between the two is in fact necessary, inevitable, and unending. Garry Wills has written many acclaimed works on religion and American history, including the Pulitzer Prize–winning Lincoln at Gettysburg; Cincinnatus: George Washington and the Enlightenment; and the New York Times bestsellers What Jesus Meant and What Paul Meant. He is a professor of history emeritus at Northwestern University and a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books. Mel Foster is a former ad agency executive who used to record test tracks for commercials. An audiobook narrator since 2002, he won an Audie Award for Finding God in Unexpected Places and an Earphones Award for the novel Match Made in Heaven. Mel is the author of several novels, including Shaking Hands with Lefkowitz.