Abstract

This book is a major contribution to Deweyean scholarship. Supplementing his masterful and thorough use of Dewey's published writings with materials from his correspondence and from reminiscences of those who knew him, Rockefeller traces the development of Dewey's religious life and thought through a six-stage evolutionary process beginning with the Vermont Congregationalism of his childhood and adolescence, through his college years and early adulthood, graduate studies, the Ann Arbor years of ethical idealism and of beginning social activism ; the break with institutionalized religion and a period of personal depression following World War I ; and finally the religious thought of his mature years and old age. The process is articulated in a full-bodied way, placing Dewey's thought in the context both of his personal life and of what was going on in the United States that had a bearing on his religious life and views at any given stage of the evolution. The approach provides a rich and valuable source for understanding the cultural, personal, literary, and philosophical influences that contributed to his religious thought.