Publications

James Ault CV — Publications 

Spirit and Flesh: Life in a Fundamentalist Baptist Church  (Alfred A. Knopf, 2005) Recounting the author’s ethnographic research and filmmaking in a fundamentalist Baptist church, as well as his research among other social conservative groups at the time, and drawing lessons from that experience to better understand conflicts over family-value issues in American life.

“The best single-volume explanation of why American fundamentalist Christianity thrives among certain people, what needs it fulfills and why it will not die out.”   The Washington Post

“One of the five best nonfiction books of year.”   The Christian Science Monitor

Honor Book, Massachusetts Center for the Book, 2005

“What Liberal Delusions About Conservatism Teach,” in Society, Jan/Feb 2012, on understanding social conservatism and conflicts over family-value issues in American life.

Lift Thine Eyes: The Landscape, the Buildings, the Heritage of Northfield Mount Hermon School (NMH: Mt. Hermon, MA) 2010 Authored three chapters covering this school, my alma mater‘s history, from World War One to the present, in the context of social change spanning this entire period.

“Secular Humanism,” in R. Wuthnow, ed., The Encyclopedia of Politics and Religion
(Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, Inc.) 1998.

“Making ‘Modern’ Marriage `Traditional’: State Power and the Regulation of Marriage in Colonial Zambia.” Theory and Society, 12 (1983). Based on research in Zambia.

“Review Essay: Robert Bates, Rural Responses to Industrialization (New Haven: Yale University Press), 1976″ African Social Research 32, 1981.