Going by the Book

Abstract

One of the significant recent developments in American historical scholarship has been increasing attention to the demotic presence of Scripture throughout the nineteenth century. What once was known as a commonplace, and therefore unworthy of serious attention, is now be-ing recognized as a commonplace, and therefore demanding serious at-tention. Major new books on the Civil War, for instance, which have an-ticipated the interest certain to surge throughout the conflict’s sesquicen-tennial, are documenting the widespread extent of Bible distribution and Bible reference in all segments of national life. The first comprehensive history of religion in the war era, by George Rable of the University of Alabama, has expertly described the ubiquity of the Christian Bible as a physical object as well as a source for public rhetoric and private rumina-tions.1 A different sort of testimony is found in David Goldfield’s even more recent large-scale interpretive volume.