The Divine Supermarket

Travels in Search of the Soul of America

By Malise Ruthven

1989

First Published

3.35

Average Rating

317

Number of Pages

9H40M

Audio Length

This is an exploration of the influence of far-right preachers on the Reagan administration. In its analysis of the melting-pot of religious cults in America, the book covers high-mindedness and moral angst, sexual humbuggery and corruption. As the world's oldest secular state, America has proved uniquely adept at hatching new creeds and producing variations on more familiar themes from Latter-Day Saints to snake-handlers. Its citizens enjoy one of the highest standards of living in the world and the country is undergoing a major religious revival. Fundamentalist groups in the South challenge the teaching of evolution in schools, television preachers such as Jerry Falwell are undermining the liberal reforms of postwar years, and cults such as the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh flourish. Part travel book, part history, part cultural analysis, this book follows Malise Ruthven from Puritan New England to the Reaganite right wing areas of the sun belt and middle America in what is intended to be a study of the soul of modern America. Malise Ruthven is also author of "Islam in the Modern World".

Avg Rating

3.35

Number of Ratings

5 STARS

13%

4 STARS

26%

3 STARS

52%

2 STARS

1 STARS

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Author

Malise Ruthven

Author · 9 books

Malise Ruthven is the author of Islam in the World, The Divine Supermarket: Shopping for God in America, A Satanic Affair: Salman Rushdie and the Wrath of Islam and several other books. His Islam: A Very Short Introduction has been published in several languages, including Chinese, Korean, Romanian, Polish, Italian and German. A former scriptwriter with the BBC Arabic and World Services, Dr Ruthven holds an MA in English Literature and a PhD in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University. He has taught Islamic studies, cultural history and comparative religion at the University of Aberdeen, the University of California, San Diego, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire and Colorado College. Now a full-time writer, he is currently working on Fundamentalism: A Very Short Introduction and Arabesque and Crucifix, a study in comparative religious iconography.