"Do Not Misunderstand Me"
The Collected Radical Addresses to the Unity Congregation (1888-1891)
Hugh O. Pentecost
Robert P. Helms, editor
"Do Not Misunderstand Me": The Collected Radical Addresses to the Unity Congregation (1888-1891)
Price: $45.00 (pbk.) ISBN: 9781642510560 7X10; 833 p. Now Available! |
"Beyond the book’s well-researched introductory essay on Pentecost’s life, legacy, and family tree, it is a fine compilation of more than 120 of his sermons, which put his radical positions and charismatic style on full display....An impressive anthology of the works of an understudied American radical." — Kirkus Reviews
"This remarkable collection is both a labor of love and a much-needed contribution to the resurgence of forgotten American radical voices." -- Tom Goyens, author of Beer and Revolution: The German Anarchist Movement in New York City, 1880-1914 These politically and socially radical addresses were originally given to Pentecost's Unity Congregation, which he started in late 1887 after breaking with mainstream Christian denominations. The texts of the addresses were subsequently published in Pentecost's journal, Twentieth Century, and are collected here for the first time. They concern social justice issues which are as pertinent today as they were in Pentecost's time: poverty, income inequality, the death penalty, education, child labor, women's rights, and more. These addresses stand as important artifacts expressing the philosophies behind many of the radical reform movements of the late 19th century, while still holding meaning for our current time. An introductory essay and extensive footnotes from editor Robert P. Helms add important context for these addresses. 
Hugh Owen Pentecost (1848-1907) was an American minister, lawyer, and publisher. He espoused the single-tax theories of economist and social reformer Henry George, and was associated with socialist and anarchist political philosophies. While little known today, Pentecost was a well-known and controversial figure during his lifetime. Robert P. Helms, editor, is an independent historian based in Philadelphia. He has previously edited and annotated the memoirs of Philadelphia anarchist Chaim Weinberg (Forty Years in the Struggle; Litwin Books, 2009) and edited Guinea Pig Zero: An Anthology of the Journal for Human Research Subjects (Garrett County Press, 2005). He also edits the Guinea Pig Zero and Dead Anarchists websites. |
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What Advance Readers are Saying:
"Robert Helms' invaluable compilation gives voice to a late 19th-century radical in the secular Free Thought movement who promoted anarchism in his widely read journal, Twentieth Century, and, for a time, upended the sensibilities of the establishment in radical addresses that scandalized many and fired up many more." Allan Antliff, author of Anarchy and Art: From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall "This remarkable collection is both a labor of love and a much-needed contribution to the resurgence of forgotten American radical voices. Helms has masterfully curated a treasure trove of lectures by Hugh Pentecost, a once-overlooked figure in Freethought and radicalism. In an era dominated by piety and religious conformity, Pentecost's words serve as a powerful reminder that America has always harbored a deep affinity for unbelief, tolerance, and freethought—forces far stronger than the dullness of dogma or the allure of authority." Tom Goyens, author of Beer and Revolution: The German Anarchist Movement in New York City, 1880-1914 (2007), and editor of Radical Gotham (2017) “A treasure-trove of insightful commentaries that remain as relevant today as they were in Gilded Age America. The former Baptist minister Pentecost welded his uncompromising rationalism into an original, revolutionary, anti-capitalist, anarchistic, and antiracist ‘gospel of social revolution’ that continues to resonate in the twenty-first century.” Kenyon Zimmer, author of Immigrants Against the State: Yiddish and Italian Anarchism in America |