American Demagogue: The Great Awakening and the Rise and Fall of Populism

American Demagogue: The Great Awakening and the Rise and Fall of Populism by J.D. Dickey

In November 1739, the American colonies felt an earthquake. It arrived not in the form of a natural disaster, but with a twenty-five-year-old preacher, George Whitefield. He had come to the New World to tell his listeners to repent their sins and be reborn, to reject the teachings of their unredeemed ministers, and to support his holy endeavors.

It worked: his stunning oratory and colorful theatrics gave him an almost unearthly sense of power over his audience, who were overwhelmed with passion, ecstasy, and fear. Whitefield's message soon divided Americans into warring sides over God. Eventually, this spiritual uprising would acquire a new name -- the Great Awakening -- and it would alter the very fabric of American life in ways no one could have ever expected.

Whitefield's methods inspired allies and imitators who drove the movement to greater heights -- men like Gilbert Tennent, who issued threats against his enemies and imagined hell for those who disagreed with him, and Jonathan Edwards, a thoughtful theologian who nonetheless preached one of the most frightening sermons in history. Ben Franklin, too, played a key role in the Awakening, even as he was repelled by certain aspects of it. At the same time, radical new preachers rose up to inspire women and enslaved black Americans in ways that proved to be threatening to the colonial hierarchy.

The Great Awakening had a profound impact in reshaping the American mind. As the years passed, the voices of dissent moved from churches to the streets and aimed their rancor at a new target: Great Britain. And so what began as a revolution fought with words and gospel mutated into one with riots and violence, until it exploded into war.

J.D. Dickey shows how a firebrand English preacher incited Americans to rebel against more than a century of tradition -- and set a precedent for the kind of galvanizing agitator who is still with us today: the American Demagogue. Though almost three centuries have passed, the themes remain the same -- anger, grievance, dissension, self-promotion, and social turmoil -- as the tide of populism continues to rise and fall.

PEGASUS BOOKS, HARDCOVER, 1ST EDITION, 1ST PRINTING, 2019