SPELLBOUND

How Charisma Shaped American History From the Puritans to Donald Trump

What happens when Americans lose faith in their religious institutions—and politicians fill the void? From the Puritans to Donald Trump, this sweeping history will change your understanding of the forces that create leaders and hold their followers captive.

Everyone feels it. Cultural and political life in America has become unrecognizable and strange. Firebrands and would-be sages have taken the place of reasonable and responsible leaders. Nuanced debates have given way to the smug confidence of yard signs. How did we get here?

In Spellbound, historian Molly Worthen argues that we will understand our present moment if we learn the story of charisma in America. From the Puritans and Andrew Jackson to Black nationalists and Donald Trump, the saga of American charisma stars figures who possess a dangerous and alluring power to move crowds. They invite followers into a cosmic drama that fulfills hopes and rectifies grievances—and these charismatic leaders insist that they alone plot the way.

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“The great story of charisma in American history, from the Massachusetts Bay Colony to MAGA, has never been more thrillingly told, never more learnedly explicated.” —Tom Holland, co-host of The Rest Is History podcast and bestselling author of Pax and Dominion

Praise for SPELLBOUND

“Finally—someone with something new to say about Donald Trump! Molly Worthen’s training as a historian of religion allows her to see what others have missed: Trump is the latest variation in a long, fascinating, and often weird history of American charismatic leaders. With her usual wit and energetic prose, Worthen connects the dots so we can see the full picture.”—Beverly Gage, professor of history at Yale University and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century

“The great story of charisma in American history, from the Massachusetts Bay Colony to MAGA, has never been more thrillingly told, never more learnedly explicated.”—Tom Holland, co-host of The Rest Is History podcast and bestselling author of Pax and Dominion

“Elegant and insightful, Molly Worthen’s Spellbound is an important contribution to the urgent project of understanding America in our time. Far from polemical, the book explores the nature of charisma, that essential and elusive element in the course of human events. . . . A truly original study.”—Jon Meacham, professor of political science at Vanderbilt University and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of And There Was Light

“America is a land of paradox, one that separates church and state but invests its politics with a religious fervor and looks every four years to elect the new messiah. In this book, Molly Worthen sets these peculiarities of American culture in the context of a broader narrative, examining the changing nature of charisma and of the often latent but always dynamic relationship that exists between the great and the good and the people who grant—or ascribe to them—such cultural power.”—Carl R. Trueman, professor at Grove City College and a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center

“A vivid, deeply researched exploration of charisma . . . A masterclass in historical analysis, skillfully demonstrating that charisma is not about the person, but about the ever-changing needs of the societies that embrace them.”—Library Journal, starred review

“Drawing on fine-grained historical research, Worthen makes insightful forays into how power is mediated in the public sphere and how Americans express their need for ‘transcendent meaning and . . . worship’ through means that can seem anything but divine. It amounts to a revealing window into shifting currents of American social, religious, and political thought.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

SPELLBOUND

How Charisma Shaped American History From the Puritans to Donald Trump

Praise for SPELLBOUND

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