Timothy L. Smith, George Marsden, David Bebbington and Anglo-American evangelicalism

This chapter analyses the intellectual maturing of evangelical history writing since the 1950s, especially through the landmark scholarship of Timothy L. Smith and George Marsden in the United States and David Bebbington in the United Kingdom. They eschewed an older-style of fundamentalist history that was typically characterised by ‘shallow research, nuance-swamping apologetics, uncritical providentialism, disengagement from academic history, and a combative spirit’. The chapter shows how their pioneering efforts broke down the barriers dividing evangelical enclaves from the academy and helped to generate a burgeoning community of scholars interested in ‘evangelicalism’ as a historical phenomenon deserving rigorous study.