Paul Blanshard was perhaps the best-known religious muckraker in America, and this, his fifteenth book, did not alter his reputation.
In such national bestsellers as American Freedom and Catholic Power and God and Man in Washington, he established himself as an investigative journalist in that most difficult of all fields, religion and morals. In this symposium he has collected some of the spiciest and most striking expressions of great religious and moral dissenters, from Voltaire to Mark Twain, from Robert Ingersoll to the United States Supreme Court.
Classics of Free Thought is a treasury of rationalism and religious conflict extracted from the span of more than 200 years of moral and religious history since the French Enlightenment. It is committed to the separation of church and state and liberty of conscience. Blanshard's own introductions lure the reader into the worlds of outspoken, courageous, and witty iconoclasts. His background explanations of editorials, speeches, and retorts add excitement as well as historical interest to the selections.
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