In this book, the second of his three-volume history, Gary Dorrien explores American theological liberalism in its heyday—at the advent of the research university and the institutionally identified school. He argues that in its prime theological liberalism effected a creative blending of theological schools, featured a tension between its evangelical and modernist impulses, and was fueled by its expectation of social and cultural progress, until its optimism was subjected to withering internal criticism in the 1930s.