This book should be read by anyone who is trying to understand 19th century America. It will be of special interest to students of church history, intellectual history and social reform.

This is better than Smith's Called Unto Holiness. Smith just was not a great writer. His style is very dry.

If you can plow through the book, it offers fantastic insight into the Protestant church of the mid 19th century. It is a look at what the laymen were reading and where they were headed. It does not focus on the clergy, except from the standpoint of their interaction with the laity.

Smith explores the complex role of the church in debate over slavery from the militant abolitionists of the far North to the accommodationists of the South to the fence straddlers of the middle states.

Smith contends that the Wesleyan revivals of the middle 19th century manifested in "perfectionism" and growing Arminian theology led to social reforms in everything from prohibition to slavery to women's rights to child labor, etc.

Very informative, if you can plow through. Don't read it when you are tired. ( )