Heike Jablonski examines how discourses of martyrdom shaped 18th- and 19th-century American culture by delineating traces of John Foxes famous martyrology Actes and Monuments in a variety of published and unpublished material. The author investigates how a 16th-century book came to have such a lasting influence in the United States and why the martyr figure was so pervasive in American culture.

Heike Jablonski received her Ph.D. from the Heidelberg Center for American Studies at Heidelberg University. She is now an executive secretary at YMCA Germany.