ABSTRACT
The religious, cultural, and political world that Reverend Nathaniel Emmons envisioned served as one foundation for American practices of global health and development, not only during the decades of Emmons's, life but even up into the present. This chapter presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines the period from the colonial era to the mid-1800s, when a theological vision of America's providential role in redeeming the world emerged among America's Protestant Christians. It also examines the first half of the twentieth century. The book concludes with a case study of the Rockefeller family as a way to trace these shifts over the decade of the early to mid-twentieth century and to demonstrate the ways in which American Protestantism played a significant role in establishing the field of public health and the federal government's foreign aid programs.
