| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.4

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Daniel L. Dreisbach. Thomas Jefferson and the Wall of Separation between Church and State. New York: New York University Press. 2002. Pp. x, 283. $42.00.
Given the controversy concerning Thomas Jefferson's famous phrase, "wall of separation between church and state," it is commendable that someone finally has devoted a full book to the subject. While more than half of this book's pages are notes, appendixes, and index, 128 pages of text nevertheless adequately address the important issues that surround the metaphor that Jefferson penned in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802 to summarize his understanding of the essential purpose of the First Amendment's religion clauses. The book is well organized, well written, and adds much toward understanding Jefferson's felicitous metaphor.	1
Jefferson's metaphor is, of course, a matter of considerable discussion in today's highly charged debates about religion and public life in the United States. It has influenced, rightly or wrongly, church-state jurisprudence, congressional policy formulation, and public debate. Dreisbach is critical of what he perceives to be the gradual development of a gross misunderstanding of Jefferson's metaphor. His view is that the metaphor has achieved "virtual canonical status" in conveying the erroneous notion that the First Amendment requires a strict separation between religion and government (p. 3). He is especially critical of the judiciary for making the metaphor a virtual rule of constitutional law.	. . .

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