Wills is a Pulitzer Prize winning historian with a deep grounding in religion. This is more unusual than you might think. Most academics, even if they have the background, miss out on the conviction. Wills is also very well read, which is unusual in these days when bestsellers gloss over the complexities. To be really informative, rather than just an opinion piece, an author must fully understand and respect both (or more) sides of any issue and be able to explain them. Wills does. This is not to imply that Wills lacks opinions. He is forthright in delivering them, but it does not get in the way of the history.

The topic is not Christianity in America, but the varieties of Christianities. For example, rapture theology might be a recent innovation, but it comes from a deep current in American religious practice. Under Wills' hands, Deists have their time in the sun, the Methodists take over the country and the Baptists evolve from an embattled minority fighting against established religion to proponents of faith based government.

While Wills spends a great deal of time on mini-biographies of seminal figures, he has a major theme which he follows through the centuries, the swing of the pendulum between Enlightenment (head) and Evangelical (heart) religion. He does not see these as enemies or opposites, just poles that most of us swing between. It is an excellent organizing principle.

So who is this book for? It is a good general text on religion and its impact on American history, sure to inform a general reader without becoming academic. It is excellent at the Enlightenment and Romanticism and how they fit into the development of of American intellectual and religious history. It helps explain how denominations come into existence, grow and mature. It covers the rise of the Religious Right and its century long impact on U.S. culture.

I give this book high marks. I like an author who knows what he is talking about. I like non-fiction that doesn't just cover the winners and gives the forgotten giants their due. The text is clear, but not dumbed down. I like opinions when they don't get in the way of solid analysis. I wanted to read it twice. ( )

Wills does a fine job exploring the history of religion in the U.S. in this book. The theme (that religion in the U.S. has been characterized by a tension and vacillation between "The Head," or the rational religion of the Enlightenment , and "The Heart," or the more emotionally based religion of Evangelism) is understated, but pretty well explored. I felt that too much attention may have been placed on the current connection between conservative Christianity and the Bush administration. I agree with Wills' perception of the subject, but I'm not convinced that this period is momentous enough in the big picture to have deserved the multiple chapters Wills gave it. But aside from this quibbling, the work is exceptional. ( )