Maybe the only way to really understand Quaker history is to get all the histories of all the people who made up that history. One manageable way to do that, for American Friends, would be to trace the individuals of a representative family through all the generations, noting the pulls on the religious beliefs of members as they experienced the religious, industrial and political changes of English North America and the eventual United States of America. That is what Palmer has done for the fictitious Plummer family. The student of American and Quaker history will find this a fascinating way to tie it all together, covering 15 generations. We note that the last member of the “Plummer” family bears a strong resemblance to the author.