George Marsden

{{Short description|American historian (born 1939)}}

{{Other uses|George Marsden (disambiguation)}}

{{Infobox academic

| name = George Marsden

| image =

| alt =

| caption =

| birth_name = George Mish Marsden

| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1939|2|25}}

| birth_place = Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, U.S.

| death_date =

| death_place =

| home_town =

| spouse = {{marriage|Lucie Commeret|1969}}{{sfn|"Marsden, George (Mish) 1939–"|2006|p=272}}

| awards =

| alma_mater = {{ubl | Yale University | Westminster Theological Seminary | Haverford College}}

| thesis_title = The New School Presbyterian Mind{{sfn|Marsden|1966}}

| thesis_year = 1966

| school_tradition =

| doctoral_advisor = Sydney E. Ahlstrom

| academic_advisors =

| influences =

| era =

| discipline = History

| sub_discipline = {{hlist | American history | history of Christianity | intellectual history}}

| workplaces = {{ubl | Calvin College | Duke University | University of Notre Dame}}

| doctoral_students = {{flatlist|

}}

| notable_students =

| main_interests = American evangelicalism

| notable_works = {{nowrap|Jonathan Edwards: A Life (2003)}}

| notable_ideas =

| influenced =

| signature =

| signature_alt =

}}

George Mish Marsden (born February 25, 1939) is an American historian who has written extensively on the interaction between Christianity and American culture, particularly on Christianity in American higher education and on American evangelicalism. He is best known for his award-winning biography of the New England clergyman Jonathan Edwards, a prominent theologian of Colonial America.{{cite magazine |last=Hansen |first=Collin |date=February 5, 2009 |url=http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/2009/february/marsden-discusses-short-life-of-jonathan-edwards.html|title=Marsden Discusses 'Short Life of Jonathan Edwards' |magazine=Christian History |publisher=Christianity Today |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170204085442/http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/2009/february/marsden-discusses-short-life-of-jonathan-edwards.html |archive-date=February 4, 2017|access-date=February 3, 2017}}

Biography

Marsden was born on February 25, 1939, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.{{sfn|"Marsden, George (Mish) 1939–"|2006|p=272}} He attended Haverford College, Westminster Theological Seminary, and Yale University, completing a Doctor of Philosophy degree{{sfn|"Marsden, George (Mish) 1939–"|2006|p=272}} in American history under Sydney E. Ahlstrom. He taught at Calvin College (1965–1986), Duke Divinity School (1986–1992), and as Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame (1992–2008).{{cite web |date=July 21, 2005 |title=2005 – George M. Marsden |url=http://grawemeyer.org/2005-george-m-marsden/ |website=Grawemeyer Awards |location=Louisville, Kentucky |publisher=University of Louisville |access-date=February 3, 2017}} As of 2017 Marsden is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame.{{cite web |title=George Marsden |url=http://history.nd.edu/faculty/emeritus-faculty/george-marsden/ |location=Notre Dame, Indiana |publisher=University of Notre Dame |access-date=February 3, 2017}} His former doctoral students include Diana Butler Bass, Matthew Grow, Thomas S. Kidd, Steven Nolt, and Rick Ostrander.{{sfn|Dochuk|Kidd|Peterson|2014}}

He was awarded the Bancroft Prize for his book Jonathan Edwards: A Life in 2004, the Merle Curti Award in 2004,"[https://www.oah.org/awards/book-awards/merle-curti-award/winners/ Merle Curti Award Winners]," Organization of American Historians.Accessed 18 Apr. 2020. and the Grawemeyer Award in Religion in 2005.

A Festschrift was composed in his honor in 2014. It was entitled American Evangelicalism: George Marsden and the State of American Religious History and was edited by Darren Dochuk, Thomas S. Kidd, and Kurt W. Peterson.

Selected works

  • {{cite book

|year=1970

|title=Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian Experience

|location=New Haven, Connecticut

|publisher=Yale University Press

}}

  • {{cite book

|year=1980

|title=Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism, 1870–1925

|url=https://archive.org/details/fundamentalismam0000mars

|url-access=registration

|location=New York

|publisher=Oxford University Press

}}

  • {{cite book

|year=1991

|title=Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism

|location=Grand Rapids, Michigan

|publisher=Eerdmans

}}

  • {{cite book

|year=1994

|title=The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief

|location=New York

|publisher=Oxford University Press

}}

  • {{cite book

|year=1995

|title=Reforming Fundamentalism: Fuller Seminary and the New Evangelicalism

|location=Grand Rapids, Michigan

|publisher=Eerdmans

}}

  • {{cite book

|year=1997

|title=The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship

|url=https://archive.org/details/outrageousideaof00mars

|url-access=registration

|location=New York

|publisher=Oxford University Press

|doi=10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195122909.001.0001

|isbn=978-0-19-512290-9

|last1=Marsden

|first1=George M.

}}

  • {{cite book

|year=2003

|title=Jonathan Edwards: A Life

|url=https://archive.org/details/jonathanedwardsl00mars

|url-access=registration

|location=New Haven, Connecticut

|publisher=Yale University Press

|isbn=9780300096934

}}

  • {{cite book

|year=2008

|title=A Short Life of Jonathan Edwards

|location=Grand Rapids, Michigan

|publisher=Eerdmans

}}

  • {{cite book

|year=2014

|title=The Twilight of the American Enlightenment: The 1950s and the Crisis of Liberal Belief

|location=New York

|publisher=Basic Books

}}

  • {{cite book

|year=2016

|title=C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity: A Biography

|location=Princeton, New Jersey

|publisher=Princeton University Press

}}

References

=Footnotes=

{{reflist|22em}}

=Bibliography=

{{refbegin|35em|indent=yes}}

  • {{cite book

|year=2014

|chapter=Appendix: George Marsden's Doctoral Students and Their Dissertations

|editor1-last=Dochuk

|editor1-first=Darren

|editor2-last=Kidd

|editor2-first=Thomas S.

|editor2-link=Thomas S. Kidd

|editor3-last=Peterson

|editor3-first=Kurt W.

|title=American Evangelism: George Marsden and the State of American Religious History

|location=Notre Dame, Indiana

|publisher=University of Notre Dame Press

|isbn=978-0-268-15855-2

}}

  • {{cite thesis

|last=Marsden

|first=George M.

|year=1966

|title=The New School Presbyterian Mind: A Study of Theology in Mid-Nineteenth Century America

|degree=PhD

|location=New Haven, Connecticut

|publisher=Yale University

|oclc=13386337

}}

  • {{cite encyclopedia

|year=2006

|title=Marsden, George (Mish) 1939–

|encyclopedia=Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series

|volume=142

|location=Detroit, Michigan

|publisher=Gale

|pages=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780787678968/page/272 272–276]

|isbn=978-1-4144-0544-5

|issn=0275-7176

|ref={{sfnref|"Marsden, George (Mish) 1939–"|2006}}

|url-access=registration

|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780787678968/page/272

}}

{{refend}}

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{{s-ach|aw}}

{{s-bef|before=James F. Brooks}}

{{s-ttl|title=Bancroft Prize|years=2004|with=Edward L. Ayers and Steven Hahn|rows=3}}

{{s-aft|after=Melvin Patrick Ely}}

{{s-bef|before=Alan Gallay|rows=2}}

{{s-aft|after=Michael Klarman}}

{{s-aft|after=Michael O'Brien}}

{{s-bef|before=Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz}}

{{s-ttl|title=Merle Curti Award in
Intellectual History|years=2004}}

{{s-aft|after=Michael O'Brien}}

{{s-bef|before=Jonathan Sacks}}

{{s-ttl|title=Grawemeyer Award in Religion|years=2005}}

{{s-aft|after=Marilynne Robinson}}

{{s-end}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Marsden, George}}

Category:1939 births

Category:Living people

Category:20th-century American historians

Category:20th-century American male writers

Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers

Category:20th-century Calvinist and Reformed Christians

Category:21st-century American historians

Category:21st-century American male writers

Category:21st-century American non-fiction writers

Category:21st-century Calvinist and Reformed Christians

Category:American Calvinist and Reformed Christians

Category:American evangelicals

Category:American historians of religion

Category:American male non-fiction writers

Category:American religious writers

Category:Bancroft Prize winners

Category:Calvin University faculty

Category:Duke Divinity School faculty

Category:Harvard Divinity School faculty

Category:Haverford College alumni

Category:Historians from Pennsylvania

Category:History of the Thirteen Colonies

Category:Intellectual historians

Category:Presidents of the American Society of Church History

Category:University of Notre Dame faculty

Category:Westminster Theological Seminary alumni

Category:Yale University alumni

{{US-historian-stub}}