Ghosts. Railroads. Sing Sing. Sex machines. These are just a few of the phenomena that appear in John Lardas Modern s pioneering account of religion and society in nineteenth-century America. This book uncovers surprising connections between secular ideology and the rise of technologies that opened up new ways of being religious. Exploring the eruptions of religion in New York s penny presses, the budding fields of anthropology and phrenology, and"Moby-Dick," Modern challenges the strict separation between the religious and the secular that remains integral to discussions about religion...

Ghosts. Railroads. Sing Sing. Sex machines. These are just a few of the phenomena that appear in John Lardas Modern s pioneering account of religion and society in nineteenth-century America. This book uncovers surprising connections between secular ideology and the rise of technologies that opened up new ways of being religious. Exploring the eruptions of religion in New York s penny presses, the budding fields of anthropology and phrenology, and"Moby-Dick," Modern challenges the strict separation between the religious and the secular that remains integral to discussions about religion...