What an infuriating historical figure. ( )

Long before megachurches and names like Rick Warren and Joel Osteen became commingled with American Christianity, Aimee Semple McPherson was America’s key religious figure, representing fundamentalism and old-time religion in America between the two World Wars. She was America’s most famous and certainly flamboyant minister, during the 1920s, 1930s, and even into the early 1940s. Given the scope of her influence, and thorough remaking of the country’s religious landscape, it is unfortunate that so few within, and without the confines of American Christendom know about “Sister Aimee” today.

While there have been books detailing McPherson’s life before (both Edith Blumhofer and Daniel Epstein produced solid works about McPherson) Matthew Avery Sutton’s Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America is the first book that places her firmly within the cultural, political, and religious milieu of her era.

The book, which came out in 2007, avoids some the traps of previous treatments of McPherson’s life—the stereotypes and caricature so often attendant with this early 20th century religious icon.

Avery does an excellent job of highlighting the context of the period when McPherson’s star began to rise. From simple beginnings on a farm in Ontario, McPherson would utilize the new media of her day, particularly radio, to draw upon the burgeoning appeal of popular entertainment, and the development of modern day Hollywood.