This book falls short of being a one volume history of religion in America. It admirably covers the history of Protestant denominations in the United States from the colonial era through the present. There are some discussions of Roman Catholic and Jewish groups, and sporadic mention of African American religious developments, Muslims, and all other traditions. But in terms of bringing these disparate groups together into a larger narrative of the development of religion in America (or even religion's role in shaping American culture and politics), there is much left out of the story.

Ultimately, I was disappointed by the narrow focus on Protestant denominations and men, and by the limited synthesis of the field of religious history. With studies of Muslim slaves in the America South, the involvement of women and African Americans in many of the earliest religious movements, and the role of immigrants in fashioning the religious traditions in the U.S., I guess I just expected more of that scholarship to appear in an "overview" style history. Even the book's stated goal of showing how religion has been "at the heart of the American experience itself" (xiii) was often implicitly covered rather than explicitly explored and defined. ( )