S. E. Ahlstrom
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Sydney Eckman Ahlstrom (1919–1984) was an American historian. He was a Yale University professor and a specialist in the
religious history The history of religion refers to the written record of human religious feelings, thoughts, and ideas. This period of religious history begins with the invention of writing about 5,200 years ago (3200 BC). The prehistory of religion involves th ...
of the United States.


Biography

Ahlstrom was born on December 16, 1919, in Cokato, Minnesota, the son of Joseph T. Ahlstrom (1878–1942) and Selma (Eckman) Ahlstrom (1881–1976), who were Swedish-American Lutherans. He graduated from
Gustavus Adolphus College Gustavus Adolphus College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in St. Peter, Minnesota. It was founded in 1862 by Swedish Americans led by Eric Norelius and is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Gustavus gets its nam ...
in
St. Peter ) (Simeon, Simon) , birth_date = , birth_place = Bethsaida, Gaulanitis, Syria, Roman Empire , death_date = Between AD 64–68 , death_place = probably Vatican Hill, Rome, Italia, Roman Empire , parents = John (or Jonah; Jona) , occupation ...
, Minnesota, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1941, and served in the US Army during the Second World War. He earned a master's degree at the University of Minnesota in 1946 and a Doctor of Philosophy degree at Harvard University in 1952. He was a Fulbright fellow at the University of Strasbourg, France, and an instructor at Harvard before joining Yale in 1954. In 1973 he received the National Book Award in category Philosophy and Religion for ''A Religious History of the American People'' (1972)."National Book Awards – 1973"
National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-08.
He was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1978. In 1979 he was awarded The Christian Century Award for the Decade's Most Outstanding Book on Religion. At the time of his retirement from Yale in 1984 he held the position of Samuel Knight Professor of American History and Modern Religious History. He died on July 3, 1984, in New Haven, Connecticut.


Bibliography


Books

* ''
A Religious History of the American People ''A Religious History of the American People'' (1st edition 1972, 2nd edition 2004) is a book by Sydney E. Ahlstrom and published by Yale University Press. The first edition was 1,158 pages in length, the second 1,192. The book has been widely rev ...
'' (1972; 2nd ed. 2004) * ''The American frontier and the Protestant missionary response'' (1960)


Edited volumes

* ''An American reformation: A documentary history of Unitarian Christianity'', edited with Jonathan S. Carey (1998) * ''Theology in America: The major Protestant voices from Puritanism to Neo-Orthodoxy'' (1967)


Representative articles

* "The Scottish Philosophy and American Theology," ''Church History,'' Vol. 24, No. 3 (Sep., 1955), pp. 257–27
in JSTOR
* "Continental Influence on American Christian Thought Since World War I," ''Church History,'' Vol. 27, No. 3 (Sept 1958), pp. 256–27
in JSTOR
* "Theology and the Present-Day Revival," ''Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science'' Vol. 332, Religion in American Society (Nov., 1960), pp. 20–3
in JSTOR
* "Thomas Hooker: Puritanism and Democratic Citizenship: A Preliminary Inquiry into Some Relationships of Religion and American Civic Responsibility," ''Church History,'' Vol. 32, No. 4 (Dec., 1963), pp. 415–43
in JSTOR
* "The Radical Turn in Theology and Ethics: Why It Occurred in 1960s," ''Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science'' Vol. 387, The Sixties: Radical Change in American Religion (Jan., 1970), pp. 1–1
in JSTOR
* "Religion, Revolution and the Rise of Modern Nationalism: Reflections on the American Experience," ''Church History,'' Vol. 44, No. 4 (Dec., 1975), pp. 492–50
in JSTOR
* "The Religious Dimension of American Aspirations," ''Review of Politics'' vol. 38, No. 3, Bicentennial Issue (Jul., 1976), pp. 332–34
in JSTOR
* "The Romantic Religious Revolution and the Dilemmas of Religious History The Romantic Religious Revolution and the Dilemmas of Religious History," ''Church History,'' Vol. 46, No. 2 (Jun., 1977), pp. 149–17
in JSTOR
* "The Problem of the History of Religion in America," ''Church History,'' Vol. 57, Supplement: Centennial Issue (1988), pp. 127–13
in JSTOR


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ahlstrom, Sydney 1919 births 1984 deaths 20th-century American historians American male non-fiction writers 20th-century American male writers 20th-century Lutherans American historians of religion American Lutherans American people of Swedish descent Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Gustavus Adolphus College alumni Harvard University alumni Historians from Minnesota Lutheran scholars National Book Award winners People from Cokato, Minnesota Presidents of the American Society of Church History University of Minnesota alumni Yale University faculty United States Army personnel of World War II