Amazing Grace Books

Jonathan Aitkin: John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace

There are several biographies of the hymn writer and clergyman written by Christian authors. Designed to convert and inspire as much as inform, this is the most recent.

William Hague: William Wilberforce: The Life of the Great Anti-Slave Trade Campaigner

A former Member of Parliament, Hague wrote this biography of his abolitionist predecessor. It is somewhat encyclopedic, and it is meant to be more informative than entertaining, but readers interested in a thorough look at the slaver-turned-sermon-writer will want this book.

Buell E. Cobb, Jr.: The Sacred Harp: A Tradition and Its Music

Cobb offers an engaging and authoritative look at the music that grew out of the Second Great Awakening. Named Sacred Harp singing after the hymnal first published in 1844, this distinctive form of American music has experienced a revival in recent decades.

Nathan Hatch: The Democratization of American Christianity

This wide-ranging study includes a section on the role of music in the democratic and revival-based religion of antebellum America.