Reviews

From BookPage This revealing, vividly told biography illuminates a fact worth remembering: Our greatest leaders do not emerge fully formed in the moment in which they are most needed, but are molded by family, community and education. Martin’s captivating Young King shows how these influences and experiences “coalesced to produce a man, a minister, and a dreamer who changed the world.” Read more ...

From New York Post A Stanford professor looks at the early years of “Little Mike” to better understand what fueled him and who he became. The book also includes rarely seen photos from the civil rights icon’s high school and college days.

Published in Muse , Johns Hopkins University Careful and timely study In this careful and timely study, Martin explores themes of white Christian nationalism, militant anticommunism, and the use and abuse of power. Such subjects align The Gospel of J. Edgar Hoover: How the FBI Aided and Abetted the Rise of White Christian Nationalism with the work of other scholars, like Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Anthea D. Butler, Andrew L. Whitehead, and Samuel L. Perry. Like these scholars, Ma

Published in The Journal of Church & State Engaging new book In this engaging new book, Lerone Martin (Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford University) persuasively argues that J. Edgar Hoover was one of the central figures of mid-twentieth century US religious history. Martin shows how Hoover combined mainline Protestant respectability, traditionally conservative ideas about gender and race as well as—thanks to his leadership of the Federal Bureau of Investig

Published in History Today A diligent use of archives and a relentless pursuit of the truth J. Edgar Hoover, 16 May 1932. Wikimedia Commons J . Edgar Hoover believed the United States was God’s chosen nation. Hoover, who was director of the FBI from 1924 to 1972, thought the Bureau’s mission was to defeat the godless forces of liberalism, feminism and civil rights. In Hoover’s view, to overcome these foes America had to yield to his preferred brand of Christianity – a Christi

Published in The Guardian An elegantly written book Photograph: Corbis/Getty Images Martin now delivers a fresh perspective. In an elegantly written book, The Gospel of J Edgar Hoover : How the FBI Aided and Abetted the Rise of White Christian Nationalism, he makes a persuasive case that Hoover was a white Christian nationalist and convenient ally for evangelicals, embedding race and religion in the foundations of the national security state – and allowing white supremacy to

Review Published in Publishers Weekly Impressive research and sharp character sketches In this revealing history, Martin ( Preaching on Wax ), director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University, contends that J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI “joined forces with the founding architects of white evangelicalism to aid and abet the rise of white Christian nationalism as a legitimate force in American politics.” Drawing on recently declassified doc

Published in Brill An important contribution to the study of religion, media, and culture in America During the 1920s, savvy American revivalists pioneered evangelical electronic broadcasting by bringing the old-time religion to radio, the latest in communications technology, thereby paving the way for today’s celebrity-driven and heavily commodified media ministries. As Lerone Martin points out in Preaching on Wax, African Americans were largely excluded from early religious

Published in The Journal of American History Martin thus locates in phonograph religion the roots of several of the most significant developments in African American Christianity over the last century. For most readers, the names of black celebrity preachers such as T. D. Jakes, Creflo Dollar, and Juanita Bynum will be far more familiar than that of James Gates. Yet, for a time, Gates's recorded sermons outsold even popular entertainers such as Ethel Waters and Bessie Smith.