Sydney E. Ahlstrom (1919–1984)

I started this, but I stilled. A Religious History of the American People is an enormous book and, with my present lack of lazy oceans of time, I'm simply not going to make it through the whole thing. Instead, I've been dipping in and out of it, reading 10-50 pages at a time, randomly or on topics that interest me. It's obvious a very fine work of synthesis and I learn something interesting every time I open it. Some day...

Comprehensive and intriguing... if you like the subject matter.

Ahlstrom's book is a classic and has not been matched in the more than 30 years since it was published. It received the Christian Century's choice as the Religious Book of the Decade in 1979. It has been reissued in 2004 with an additional chapter bringing the history more up to date. Still this remains an invaluable history of religion since the arrival of Christians in this hemisphere.

Very good, extremely complete history covering every denomination, sect, cult and movement in two vol. Read it while a student at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley CA. My advisor, Dr. Samuel Garrett recommended it.