Book jacket comments:

By ARTHUR SCHLESINGER, JR. --

"In view of the tide of religiosity engulfing a once secular republic, it is refreshing to be reminded by Freethinkers that free thought and skepticism are robustly in the American tradition. After all, the Founding Fathers began by omitting God from the American Constitution."

By PHILIP ROTH --

"In the best of all possible Americas every college freshman would be required to take a course called 'The History of American Secularism." The text woud be Susan Jacoby's Freethinkers, as necessary a book as could be published in the fourth year of the ministry of George W. Bush."

By ARTHUR MILLER --

"This book is fresh air for the lungs of those who defend the separation of church and state. Here, clearly written and without apologetics, is the noble record of the long struggle to retain America's precious freedom of conscience, her pride for two centuries, now under threat from the political Right as never before."

By PETER GAY, Sterling Professor of History Emeritus at Yale University --

"Freethinkers is not only a good book, it is a necessary one. This dramatic study offers a welcome reminder that the Founding Fathers were intent on keeping church and state firmly separated. Lively, impassioned, and impartial, Susan Jacoby's argument deserves more than respect; it deserves support."

By ADAM HOCHSCHILD, author of King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

"At a time when a U.S. president divides the world into good and evil and claims God's approval for his foreign adventures, we need Susan Jacoby's lively history of the remarkable tradition of American freethought more than ever."

By SUSAN BROWNMILLER, author of Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape
"Susan Jacoby reminds us of one of our finest American traditions. With this striking and meticulous work, she has rescued the historic force of freethinking from political oblivion. Let us hope that this book points to a more rational future."