Why do so many conservative politicians flock to the campuses of Liberty University, Wheaton College, and Bob Jones University? In Fundamentalist U: Keeping the Faith in American Higher Education, Adam Laats shows that these colleges have always been more than just schools; they have been vital intellectual citadels in America's culture wars. They have been unique institutions that have defined what it has meant to be an evangelical and reshaped the landscape of American higher education. In the twentieth century, when higher education sometimes seemed to focus on sports, science, and social excess, conservative evangelical schools offered a compelling alternative. On their campuses, evangelicals debated what it meant to be a creationist, a Christian, a proper American, all within the bounds of Biblical revelation. Instead of encouraging greater personal freedom and deeper pluralist values, conservative evangelical schools have thrived by imposing stricter rules on their students and faculty. If we hope to understand either American higher education or American evangelicalism, we need to understand this influential network of dissenting institutions. Plus, only by making sense of these schools can we make sense of America's continuing culture wars. After all, our culture wars aren't between one group of educated people and another group that has not been educated. Rather, the fight is usually fiercest between two groups that have been educated in very different ways.

About the Author
Adam Laats is Professor of Education and History at Binghamton University. He is the author of several books, including The Other School Reformers: Conservative Activism in American Education (2015), winner of the History of Education Society's Outstanding Book Award, 2016.

Reviews
Laat's book is an informative, interesting, and sympathetic look at a fascinating educational subculture. * David Talcott, The King's College (NY), Religious Studies Review *
Fundamentalist U,is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of modern evangelicalism. * Tim Gloege, Church History *
Along the way, Laats uses a vast array of evidence, from theological tracts to student evaluations, to reveal the changing perspectives of, and pressures on, university administrators, professors, students, and parents. ... Fundamentalist U is a superb book and a significant contribution to the histories of U.S. religion and politics as well as higher education. * Andrew Jewett, Journal of American History *
Finally, we have a comprehensive history of some of the most significant and significantly understudied 'dissenting' types of higher educational institutions: fundamentalist and evangelical colleges and universities. And Adam Laats is exactly the right person to have written it. As a sympathetic outsider to the institutions he studies, Laats pairs depth of research and analysis with a commitment to rigorous fairness to his subjects... Fundamentalist U reshapes our mental landscape of twentieth-century American higher educational institutions and is essential reading for understanding both their history and their present. * Andrea L. Turpin, History of Education Quarterly *
At its worst, scholarship on religion and American higher education has a tendency to diverge into a diatribe against secularization and the waning influence of Christianity in 20th and 21st century colleges and universities. At its best, scholarship on religion and American higher education produces fascinating studies about the ways in which religion engages in a unique and complex network of educational institutions that, in many ways, is unparalleled in any other country. Adam Laats's book, Fundamentalist U: Keeping Faith in American Higher Education, falls within the latter category ... Laats presents scholars with an important study in an area of religion and American higher education that brings evangelical and fundamentalist institutions into the field of study. * Andrew Gardner, Reading Religion *



Book Information
ISBN 9780190665623
Author Adam Laats
Format Hardback
Page Count 362
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 612g
Dimensions(mm) 236mm * 157mm * 25mm