Isaac Weiner's book has been well received. In the most positive sense, it is an easy read; relevant information presented with clarity. Indeed, one might even consider this a topic that almost wrote itself as the subject has the familiarity of CNN news. In his introduction Weiner acknowledges that when he began the project while at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, “everyone has a story” (ix). His case that auditory space is uniquely pluralistic, however timely, is not new. We hear multiple sounds at the same time, to witness the long-standing confrontation of Eastern Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, and Roman Catholic services heard in Jerusalem's Holy Sepulchre. In the Middle Ages, to be seen and heard was fundamental to the body politic. Restrictions imposed on clergy were often those that limited their ability to be heard. A chastised individual was limited to saying the Mass in sotto voce, performance of the ritual but with lowered voice. This was often the situation during Lent, a time of penance, when bells were silenced, only to be proclaimed again with the jubilant celebration of Christ's resurrection from the dead.

This study is distinguished by its careful and comprehensive review of legal cases, focused especially on Supreme Court decisions. “From Sacred Noise to Public Nuisance” introduces the function of church bells in marking community life in European pre-industrial culture. Weiner quotes an 1853 letter to the New-York Daily Times signed with the pseudonym Philo, that mental activity is superior to the ritual or even practical need for bells in our older, rustic communities. With civilized behavior, such as that found in the urban city, their presence became cacophony. “Church Bells in the Industrial City” continues this theme with a vivid description of the international influx surrounding the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. At the same time residents petitioned against St. Mark's Church, Episcopal, to silence its bells. Here the author gives a rich analysis of the strain experienced among a protestant elite concerning high-church ritualism precipitated by the innovations of a new pastor, and America's traditional protestant interiorized worship. This theme of the clash between core definitions of religion and worship animates the entire book. For some the practice of religion is essentially a personal and private communication between the believer and his/her god; for others, the public display and proclamation of faith is inseparable from interior conviction, and is even mandated for believers.

“A New Regulatory Regime,” which treats, among other issues, the Salvation Army marching bands, is followed by “Sound Car Religion and the Right to Be Left Alone.” Here the author notes the Supreme Court's 1948 decision in Saia v. New York allowed Jehovah's Witnesses to employ loudspeakers to broadcast sermons to non-congregant citizens of Lockport, New York. He then moves to “The New Constitutional World and the Illusory Ideal of Neutrality” and decisions such as Wisconsin v. Yoder of 1973 when Amish were exempted from the obligation to keep their children in schools through the age of sixteen. In the 1989 ruling, Ward. v. Rock Against Racism, the dissenting minority lead by Thurgood Marshall made a telling distinction that “style of speech could never be neatly separated from its content or message” (147).

Finally, “Calling Muslims—and Christian—to Prayer” the author examines the city council of Hamtramck, Michigan's 2004 decision to grant its Islamic Center the right to broadcast the call to prayer. He argues that in Hamtramck, Muslims hoped that listening to “overlapping layers of sound would offer an occasion for remapping the boundaries of collective identity” (199). Others “in a social context marked by rapid diversification . . . advocated for a secular public realm” (197). What most often devolves, however, in the present urban demographics is that an area is transformed into a quasi-monolithic culture—until another religious practice and ethnicity supplants it.

Ultimately Weiner's book addresses the fundamental issue of religious pluralism in a multicultural society in contrast to more mono-ethnic political states that presume a dominant religion/culture. What indeed is the moral existence of the secular state? How do we see it constituted at home and internationally? The so called “founding fathers” were encouraged to distance religion from the state—many because they espoused tendencies similar to the Jeffersonian attraction to deism but also through the example of the marginalized, in particular the voice of John Carroll. Carroll, the lone Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence brought a perspective deeply scarred by the experience of England's Catholics under “penal laws” which in their lenient phases denied Catholics access to university degrees and public office and in their more stringent levied fines and penalties that included banishment and death.

The international debate over public space and religious practice cuts to the core of the neutrality of the secular state, neutrality that for some is the essential guarantee of religious integrity and for others a denial of traditional values. France's laicization, long seen as a model, is now seriously under attack. The espousal of laïcité rests on Article 2 of the 1958 French Constitution: La France est une République indivisible, laïque, démocratique et sociale. Elle assure l‘égalite devant la loi de tous les citoyens sans distinction d'origine, de race, ou de religion. Elle respecte toutes les croyances. (France is an indivisible republic: secular, democratic, and social. It assures the equality before the law of all citizens regardless of origin, race, or religion. It respects all beliefs.) Religion thus belongs to the individual and cannot interfere with the public domain. In the United States the protective neutrality of the state is even more fraught with contention.

With so many rich and intersected references, the one drawback to this study is a less than adequate index. Certainly legal decisions need to be cross-referenced for both parties.