Winner of the 2000 Award for Best Professional/Scholarly Book in Philosophy and Religion, Association of American Publishers One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2000 "Taves brings a new perspective to familiar territory in American religious history: camp meetings, spiritual mediums, Pentecostalism, faith healing, and the work of William James... [She] handles the complexity and breadth of her study well, ... Read morebalancing evidence and theory with clear prose, and ultimately provides a new view of the inner workings of American religious traditions."
Library Journal "[Taves] attends sensitively to how language shapes experience, accenting the complex interplay between theory and practice."
Publishers Weekly "As much a treat as a treatise, and not just for historians... An intellectual adventure ... thick with anecdote, example and quotation."
New York Times Book Review "An ambitious history both of religious experience within this broadly defined evangelical tradition and of efforts to explain and judge it... A remarkable compendium of firsthand descriptions of religious experience and practice."
Marc Arkin, The Wall Street Journal "Taves provides a fascinating account of the interplay between experiencing religion and explaining these experiences... Provocative, well-written, and an exemplar of interdisciplinary scholarship."
Choice "Taves offers a brilliant introduction to the intricate art of explaining religious experience."
Robert Fuller, Christian Century "This impressive book will stand on its merits for many years to come. It will change the way we look at the received narrative of American religious history and, as much, the way we look at ourselves as interpreters of the narrative ... Taves has provided grounding and insight that puts us in her debt."
Catherine L. Albanese, Journal of American History "This is an important study and a major contribution to the study of the Anglo-American discourse on religion."
Gary L. Ebersole, Journal of Religion "This is an excellent book. Its method is historical and its self-set purpose concerns the interplay between experiencing religion and explaining the experience. The book deserves careful reading."
Douglas J. Davies, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute "One of the most important contributions not only to the study of American religious history, but more broadly to the study of religion, which has appeared in recent years... [It] should be of great interest to students of religious phenomena no matter what their particular field of study."
Peter W. Williams, Catholic Historical Review Show Less