By Kathryn Gin Lum. In a sweeping historical narrative, shows how the idea of the religious “heathen” in need of salvation, maintained from the colonial era to the present, undergirds American conceptions of race. Shows that the concept of “heathens” is a key source of American exceptionalism and a prism through which Americans have defined themselves as a progressive and humanitarian nation — set apart in a world of needy, suffering peoples. Read more.