| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 95.3

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 95.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Southern Crossroads: Perspectives on Religion and Culture. Ed. by Walter H. Conser Jr. and Rodger M. Payne. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2008. 382 pp. $60.00, ISBN 978-0-8131-2494-0.)

Southern Crossroads elucidates what its editors call "the shift in the study of southern religiosity away from churches and denominations and toward religious life as it encounters disparate cultural elements" (p. 4). Walter H. Conser Jr. and Rodger M. Payne loosely group the book's contributions under the metaphor of "crossroads" "to suggest the motion and potentiality contained in the study of southern religion" (p. 1). While the title reflects a recognition of the South's still-underappreciated religious—and not just Christian—variety, it also implies a hesitancy to impose a more specific conceit on their subject matter. The essays are indeed diverse, often compelling, but also somewhat scattered and uneven. This is perhaps inevitable for a collection that cuts across disciplinary lines. Ten of the fifteen selections are reprinted from journals or other periodicals (especially the Journal of Southern Religion, which Payne edited), and a few pieces feature arguments better developed elsewhere by the same scholars.

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