| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 109.4

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the AHR online. About 211 words from this article are provided below; about 537 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the American Historical Association, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time. AHA members can go to the AHA individual membership section to locate their member numbers.
If you are not a member of the American Historical Association, you can:: • Join the AHA and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the American Historical Review.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the American Historical Review (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the American Historical Review.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 109.4 | The History Cooperative

E. Brooks Holifield. Theology in America: Christian Thought from the Age of the Puritans to the Civil War. New Haven: Yale University Press. 2003. Pp. ix, 617. $35.00.
E. Brooks Holifield's book is a detailed, carefully researched history of American Christian thought from the colonial period until 1865. Beginning with the Puritans' search for clarity about conversion, Holifield moves carefully through various theological writers, standing in traditions as diverse as Calvinism, Lutheranism, and Roman Catholicism, and ends with the religious and theological discussions of slavery. Considered only as a summary of a complicated intellectual tradition, this book is a masterpiece. Despite the vast research into antebellum religious thought over the last century, no other work has the same comprehension and rich attention to detail.	1
Yet, Holifield's work is not a survey in the usual sense of that word. It sets forth a paradigm for the interpretation of early American theology that stresses the interaction of two important theological motifs: the understanding of theology as a practical discipline that sustains the church and, especially, the religious life of ordinary believers, and the search for empirical or historical evidence of the truth of Christianity, especially the truth of the biblical stories.	. . .

There are about 537 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.