"This is a fresh, lively, discerning account of popular freethought. Schmidt shows how resilient and resourceful have been the minority of Americans who publicly refuse belief in God. Amid vehement efforts by the religious majority to suppress them, these hated 'village atheists' managed to expand gradually the borders of acceptable spiritual orientations. Schmidt's fascinating subjects are popular writers and cartoonists, not the scientists and philosophers that dominate our standard secularization narrative." --David A. Hollinger, University of California, Berkeley "Tracing a long history of religious freethought that has received little attention, Schmidt tells a gripping story not only of confrontation between Christians and 'infidels' but also one of negotiation, second thoughts, resistance to hypocrisy, principled integrity, and courage in the face of intolerance. Village Atheists is the work of a prize-winning historian at the top of his game." --Grant Wacker, author of America's Pastor: Billy Graham and the Shaping of a Nation "This is a book that finally argues that atheists belong at the center of the study of American religion, showing how religious infidelity is always and ever the other side of religious fidelity.

Both are practiced and articulated with equal contradiction, anguish, and social struggle. Schmidt has redeemed the village atheist as a category of serious significance." --Kathryn Lofton, author of Oprah: The Gospel of an Icon "Schmidt has always written with verve and precision, and he draws the four freethinkers profiled here as colorful and cantankerous foot soldiers in the culture wars of past generations. He is a superb writer who can engage readers who might not normally be drawn to books in religious history." --E. Brooks Holifield, author of God's Ambassadors: A History of the Christian Clergy in America.