Introduction : a nation founded on writing
The "world's oldest book" and the crisis of scriptural authority
Revivals, reaction, and the ultra-Protestants
Scriptures as sepulchres : Unitarians and Transcendentalists
Spirit and kingdom : language, social action, and the "true reviving"
American parascriptures : the making of a political canon
Sacred ephemera : literature, news, and Uncle Tom's cabin
Walt Whitman's "New Bible" and the spiritual vitalizing of facts
Slavery, liberty, and the three great charters
Lincoln's miniature Bible : salvation history in the Gettysburg address
Conclusion : the new American Testaments.