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The Great Agnostic: Robert Ingersoll And American Freethought (2013)

by Susan Jacoby(Favorite Author)

3.95 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0300137257 (ISBN13: 9780300137255)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Yale University Press

review 1: A charismatic, supremely popular speaker 100 years ago. Robert Ingersoll toured the US giving lectures at a time when this was a major form of entertainment and education. Raised by a minister, he believed that while he couldn't prove the non-existence of God, neither could anyone prove the existence and coming of age soon after the Civil War, he refused to believe a God who would allow the torment of slavery using much the same argument I use concerning child abuse.
review 2: A fascinating look at a man well-known in his time but obscure today because he was an atheist. In the waning years of the nineteenth century, Robert Ingersoll was a recognized intellectual and popular speaker, committed to the separation of church and state as envisioned by the founders... more and enshrined in our Constitution. His rhetorical skills were such and his appeal so broad that it was said he could have been a presidential candidate - if only he weren't an atheist. This isn't a chronological biography - birth, youth, young adult, middle age, death. Rather it's an interweaving of the political and intellectual ideas of a man with the times he lived - and the ramifications for our faltering democracy today are never far from mind. less

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