| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 109.5

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the AHR online. About 245 words from this article are provided below; about 544 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, 109.5 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Mark Oppenheimer. Knocking on Heaven's Door: American Religion in the Age of Counterculture. New Haven: Yale University Press. 2003. Pp. ix, 284. $30.00.
Unquestionably, the counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s had an impact on American religion, but how are we to describe it? Historians and sociologists usually view the populist movements of those years in one of two ways: either through a romantic lens, seeing a flowering of personal spirituality and anti-institutionalism with deep American roots leading to a reconfigured set of religious sensibilities, or as an excess of self-indulgence and social protest that, in the end, spawned a conservative backlash and ushered in a new era of cultural wars. Mark Oppenheimer's argument is neither of these and thus refreshingly welcome.	1
Speaking to the first of these arguments, the author thoroughly resists any notion of a radical shift in consciousness undermining the existing religious base. There was no major turn to Eastern religions at the time. Nor was there a massive dropping away from mainstream denominations. Speaking to the second, his view is that the paradigm of culture wars presumes that political activism is the organizing principle in American religious life, which makes it too limiting. The paradigm looks upon religious change as a zero-sum game, with some groups always winning and others inevitably losing. With respect to both arguments, Oppenheimer's critiques are supported by considerable evidence, much of which he documents.	. . .

There are about 544 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.