Download or read book Providence and the Invention of American History written by Sarah Koenig and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sarah Koenig traces the rise and fall of Protestant missionary Marcus Whitman's legend, revealing two patterns in the development of American history. On the one hand is providential history, marked by the conviction that God is an active agent in human history and that historical work can reveal patterns of divine will. On the other hand is objective or scientific history, which arose initially in the pleas of Catholics and other racial and religious outsiders who resisted providentialists' pejorative descriptions of non-Protestants and nonwhites.