Spellbound - by Molly Worthen (Hardcover)

About the Book

"What happens when Americans lose faith in their religious institutions--and politicians fill the void? From the Puritans to Donald Trump, this sweeping history ... will change your understanding of the forces that create leaders and hold their followers captive"--

Book Synopsis

What happens when Americans lose faith in their religious institutions--and politicians fill the void? From the Puritans to Donald Trump, this sweeping history will change your understanding of the forces that create leaders and hold their followers captive.

"Elegant and insightful, Spellbound is an important contribution to the urgent project of understanding America in our time."--Jon Meacham

Everyone feels it. Cultural and political life in America has become unrecognizable and strange. Firebrands and would-be sages have taken the place of reasonable and responsible leaders. Nuanced debates have given way to the smug confidence of yard signs. How did we get here?

In Spellbound, historian Molly Worthen argues that we will understand our present moment if we learn the story of charisma in America. From the Puritans and Andrew Jackson to Black nationalists and Donald Trump, the saga of American charisma, Worthen argues, stars figures who possess a dangerous and alluring power to move crowds. They invite followers into a cosmic drama where hopes are fulfilled and grievances are put right--and these charismatic leaders insist that they alone plot the way.

The story of charisma in America reveals that when traditional religious institutions fail to deliver on their promise of a meaningful life, people will get their spiritual needs met in a warped cultural and political landscape dominated by those who appear to have the power to bring order and meaning out of chaos. Charismatic leaders address spiritual needs, offering an alternate reality where people have knowledge, power, and heroic status, whether as divinely chosen instruments of God or those who will restore national glory.

Through Worthen's centuries-spanning historical research, Spellbound places a crucial religious lens on the cultural, economic, and political upheavals facing Americans today.

Review Quotes

"Finally--someone with something new to say about Donald Trump! Molly Worthen's training as a historian of religion allows her to see what others have missed: Trump is the latest variation in a long, fascinating, and often weird history of American charismatic leaders. With her usual wit and energetic prose, Worthen connects the dots so we can see the full picture."--Beverly Gage, professor of history at Yale University and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century

"The great story of charisma in American history, from the Massachusetts Bay Colony to MAGA, has never been more thrillingly told, never more learnedly explicated."--Tom Holland, co-host of The Rest Is History podcast and bestselling author of Pax and Dominion

"Elegant and insightful, Molly Worthen's Spellbound is an important contribution to the urgent project of understanding America in our time. Far from polemical, the book explores the nature of charisma, that essential and elusive element in the course of human events. . . . A truly original study."--Jon Meacham, professor of political science at Vanderbilt University and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of And There Was Light

"America is a land of paradox, one that separates church and state but invests its politics with a religious fervor and looks every four years to elect the new messiah. In this book, Molly Worthen sets these peculiarities of American culture in the context of a broader narrative, examining the changing nature of charisma and of the often latent but always dynamic relationship that exists between the great and the good and the people who grant--or ascribe to them--such cultural power."--Carl R. Trueman, professor at Grove City College and a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center

"A vivid, deeply researched exploration of charisma . . . A masterclass in historical analysis, skillfully demonstrating that charisma is not about the person, but about the ever-changing needs of the societies that embrace them."--Library Journal, starred review

"Drawing on fine-grained historical research, Worthen makes insightful forays into how power is mediated in the public sphere and how Americans express their need for 'transcendent meaning and . . . worship' through means that can seem anything but divine. It amounts to a revealing window into shifting currents of American social, religious, and political thought."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

About the Author

Molly Worthen is a professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a freelance journalist. She teaches courses on North American religion and politics, global Christianity, and the history of ideas. She writes on these themes for The New York Times and has contributed to The New Yorker, Slate, The American Prospect, Foreign Policy, and other publications. She has also created video and audio courses on the history of Christianity and the history of charismatic leadership for the Great Courses and Audible. Her previous books are Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism and The Man on Whom Nothing Was Lost: The Grand Strategy of Charles Hill.