Prayer in America A Spiritual History of Our Nation

ONE NATION UNDER GOD brings together the country's hymns, patriotic anthems, arts, and literature as a framework for telling the story of the innermost thoughts of the people who have shaped the United States we know today. Beginning with Native Americans, Moore traces the prayer lives of Quakers and Shakers, Sikhs and Muslims, Catholics and Jews, from their earliest days in the United States through the advent of cyberspace, the aftermath of 9/11, and the 2004 presidential election. It probes the approach to prayer by such diverse individuals as Benjamin Franklin, Elvis Presley, Martha Graham, Cesar Chavez, P. T. Barnum, Jackie Robinson, and Christopher Columbus. It includes every president of the United States as well as America's farmers, clergy, immigrants, industrialists, miners, sports heroes, and scientists. A stirring chronicle of the spiritual life of a nation, ONE NATION UNDER GOD shows how the faith of Americansfrom the founding fathers to corporate tycoons, from composers to social reformers, from generals to slaveswas an essential ingredient in the formation of American culture, character, commerce, and creed.