文章基本信息

标题：American Religion: Literary Sources and Documents.
作者：Williams, Peter W.
期刊名称：Church History
印刷版ISSN：0009-6407
出版年度：2000
期号：March
语种：English
出版社：American Society of Church History
摘要：Encountering this British collection of documents on American religious history is like reentering my world of graduate studies in the field in the mid-1960s. Most of this collection, including its bibliography, was available at that time, and is still accessible in American Christianity, that grand work edited by and still known as "Smith, Handy and Loetscher" (American Christianity; An Historical Interpretation with Representative Documents, ed. H. Shelton Smith, Robert T. Handy, and Lefferts A. Loetscher [New York: Scribner, 1960-63]). This new collection's core is similarly an abundance of sources on American Protestantism into the twentieth century. To this core is appended sections on Catholics, Jews, African and Native Americans, Asian Religions, and so forth, but in rather halfhearted fashion. The introductory historical narrative is similarly dated and spotty, with no mention, for example, of Isaac Mayer Wise or Vatican II to be found there or in the index. (The Berrigans seem to be the only representatives of post-1920 American Catholicism.) At this price, those in quest of sources would better turn to Edwin Scott Gaustad's Documentary History of Religion in America (2 vols; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1982; rev. ed. 1993).

American Religion: Literary Sources and Documents.

Williams, Peter W.

American Religion: Literary Sources and Documents. Edited by David Turley. Mountfield, U.K.: Helm Information, 1998. Helm Information Literary Sources and Documents. 3 vols. xx + 455 pp.; x + 440 pp.; x + 586 pp. $375.00 cloth.

Encountering this British collection of documents on American religious history is like reentering my world of graduate studies in the field in the mid-1960s. Most of this collection, including its bibliography, was available at that time, and is still accessible in American Christianity, that grand work edited by and still known as "Smith, Handy and Loetscher" (American Christianity; An Historical Interpretation with Representative Documents, ed. H. Shelton Smith, Robert T. Handy, and Lefferts A. Loetscher [New York: Scribner, 1960-63]). This new collection's core is similarly an abundance of sources on American Protestantism into the twentieth century. To this core is appended sections on Catholics, Jews, African and Native Americans, Asian Religions, and so forth, but in rather halfhearted fashion. The introductory historical narrative is similarly dated and spotty, with no mention, for example, of Isaac Mayer Wise or Vatican II to be found there or in the index. (The Berrigans seem to be the only representatives of post-1920 American Catholicism.) At this price, those in quest of sources would better turn to Edwin Scott Gaustad's Documentary History of Religion in America (2 vols; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1982; rev. ed. 1993).

Peter W. Williams Miami University