Immediate audience for this book will be those with an interest in Mennonite history, others will find it useful as a case study of the effort of a religious group to relate to a new and very different cultural environment.
Choice
Sobering, insightful and witty... Froese's treatment of these complex religious transformations is well-balanced, even-handed and well-documented... A ... Read moresolid contribution to the growing understanding of the ways that faith communities engage their worlds and continue to transform.
Jon Issak
Mennonite Brethren Herald
An insightful study of the California Mennonite story.
California Mennonite Historical Society Bulletin
Brian Froese's new history of California Mennonites tackles the vagaries of 'secular Mennonitism' with a scholarly precision not accessible to most undergraduates... California Mennonites is a welcome addition to the blossoming historiography of American Mennonite and Amish culture.
The Mennonite Quarterly Review
In describing California Mennonites' creatively navigated embrace of modernity, Froese moves them from the margins to the center of the American Mennonite experience. His book will remain the standard on the subject for years to come.
Journal of American History
This is an essential book for those seeking to understand the full complexities of Anabaptist history in the twentieth century. Well written, carefully structured, and impressively comprehensive in its topical coverage, the book is worthy of wide adaptation in Mennonite history courses and religious studies classes focused on sectarian engagement with modernity.
Reading Religion
I highly recommend this book to scholars of religion, culture, and California history, particularly those interested in how ethnic and religious groups negotiate their identities in light of secularism and modernity. I will also be recommending this book to fellow Mennonites in the pews and in the classroom. They will no doubt find that California Mennonites is a book that can serve as a source of insight as we both adapt to and resist postmodernity, and shape what it means to be a Mennonite today.
Nova Religio
... an important beginning for the study of Mennonites in the West.
Pacific Historical Review
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