| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 111.2

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 111.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Comparative/World

David Hempton. Methodism: Empire of the Spirit. New Haven: Yale University Press. 2005. Pp. xiii, 278. $30.00.
Methodism has attracted attention from many accomplished scholars, among them David Hempton. His two fine studies of the relationship of Methodism to politics and popular religion reward close reading by all students of evangelical Protestantism. No surprise, then, that his latest book offers an ambitious, wide-ranging analysis of this international religious movement, one that melds the findings of Hempton's life-long archival research with his flair for synthesizing recent scholarship. The book raises and answers many important questions, and it opens up many avenues for future inquiry. About the significance of the Methodists, there can be no doubt: as Hempton suggests, their rise may well be the most important development in Protestantism since the Reformation, especially since the case can be made that they are the forerunners of Pentecostal churches that now spread like wildfire throughout the world.	1
Hempton's preface is a gem of wit, delightfully unexpected from an historian who has spent so much of his career summoning the shades of early Methodists. But then he settles down to the serious business of addressing big questions. How did Methodism rise from its unpromising origins in England during the 1730s to outstrip competing forms of popular religiosity and to reckon with the challenge of the Enlightenment? What was the heart of the Methodist message as it was heard and experienced by its early adherents? Why did it encounter fierce opposition in some settings and heartfelt acceptance in others? And, finally, where can we look to explain its diminishing number of adherents over the course of the twentieth century?	. . .

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