Winner of the 1995 American Academy of Religion Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion for the Outstanding Book in Constructive-Reflective Studies
“William Dean has written a powerful book for our time—the best case for serious public intellectuals we have!” — Cornel West, Harvard University
"This book engages the reader in an exploration of a related set of ideas, ideas that are timely, com...(Read More)
History Making History
(November 1988)
The New Historicism in American Religious Thought William Dean - Author
This book recognizes that the postmodern "new historicism" leads to a value-neutral relativism and leaves theology with an impossible choice. Dean argues that the postmodern challenge is incoherent and ineffective unless it is reinterpreted in terms of its classical American roots. Before offering a third option, Dean defends the neopragmatism of Richard Rorty, Richard Bernstein, Nelson Goodman, Hilary Putnam, Cornel West, and Jeffrey Stout; the d...(Read More)
This is a clear and sharply written defense of the thesis that American empirical theology, especially that associated with the Chicago School, is a postmodern movement in the sense advocated by the deconstructionists. Whereas it usually is thought that Protestant neo-orthodoxy brought life back into theology, Dean argues that it was merely a late gasp of the dying transcendental-signified culture.
