NEH Summer Stipend: Culture Warriors Abroad: A Global History of the American Culture Wars

Research for a book on how American religious organizations intervened in the cultural and political affairs of other countries after World War II.Culture Warriors Abroad: a Global History of the American Culture Warswill be the first book-length historical study of how Americans exported the culture wars and worked in tandem with allies in Africa, Europe, and Asia to further their visions of democracy. By exploring the history of the culture wars abroad from the 1960s to the present day, and the transnational links that sustained them, it will show that today’s divisions about what a democracy should look like are nothing new. The book will explore historical precedents to today’s debates about the health of democracies, including race, gender, education, birth control, free speech, abortion, and AIDS medication, and the relationship between religion and secular democratic states. In doing so,Culture Warriors Abroadoffers a genealogy of today’s political realignments underway in the United States and beyond.