“Village Atheists: How America’s Unbelievers Made Their Way in a Godly Nation,” the most recent book by Leigh Eric Schmidt, the Edward C. Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities, has been named by Publishers Weekly to its list of most anticipated books of fall 2016. In the book, forthcoming from Princeton University Press, Schmidt explores the history of American secularism and the complex world in which American atheists and secularists have lived.
Widely published as a cultural historian, essayist and reviewer, Schmidt has written extensively on American spiritual seeking, holiday conflicts, evangelical Protestantism and liberal religious traditions. He is the author of numerous books, including “Hearing Things: Religion, Illusion, and the American Enlightenment” (Harvard University Press, 2000), which won the American Academy of Religion Award for Excellence in Historical Studies and the John Hope Franklin Prize of the American Studies Association. He joined Washington University’s John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics in 2011.