Matthew Avery Sutton, American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism (Cambridge, Massachusetts, & London, England: Belknap Press/Harvard U. Press, 2014) ("This book draws on a lively cast of characters and extensive archival research to document the ways an initially obscure group of charismatic preachers and their followers have reshaped American religion, at home and abroad, for over a century. Perceiving the United States as besieged by satanic forces--communism and secularism, family breakdown and government encroachment--Billy Sunday, Charles Fuller, Billy Graham, and many others took to the pulpit and airwaves to explain how biblical end-times prophecy made sense of a world ravaged by global wars, genocide, and the threat of nuclear extinction. Rather than withdraw from their communities to wait for Armageddon, they used what little time was left to warn of the coming Antichrist, save souls, and prepare the United States for God's final judgment. Their work helped define the major issues and controversies of the twentieth century, and they continue to exert a tremendous influence over the American mainstream today." Id. at ix-x. "Unlike race, however, social class and region of birth continued to have little influence on who would and would not embrace the radical apocalypticism of modern evangelicalism. Millions of men and women, from the depressed factories of the urban rust belt to the rural oil fields of west Texas to the upper-middle-class tech-boom suburbs of southern California longed for the second coming, There were (and are) no easy ways to predict along class or regional lines who would and would not embrace a theology of doom. Apocalypticism has provided millions of Americans with a powerful lens through which to make sense of difficult and challenging eras." Id. at 351.).
Joel A. Carpenter, Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism (New York & Oxford: Oxford U. Press, 1997).
