This slender, concise book considers the 1950s as a critical period which posed a thorny challenge to Protestants: what to do about the new medium of television. Rosenthal traces the divergent responses and media strategies of mainline and evangelical Protestants at the dawn of the television age. Mainline groups, particularly the National Council of Churches, feared television's power to manipulate audiences and dismissed it as a lowbrow waste of time and a moral vice. The council's Broadcast and Film Commission (BFC) gradually moved from producing some notable early efforts at religious television, to its preferred role as media watchdog and critic by the mid-1950s. ‘Unable to preserve the privilege of sustained-time programming, unable to raise large sums for future programming, unclear as to the message that should be aired, the BFC was left to issue pronouncements and statements’ (p. 57), which only illustrated their loosening hold on cultural power. Meanwhile, evangelicals eagerly embraced television, as they had radio, as a God-given medium for spreading the Word, and developed a robust system of cooperation lobbying for access to paid time-slots on the major networks for Christian broadcasters through the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB). Their media advocacy successfully positioned the issue as one of religious freedom. Evangelicals thus cleared a middle way between separatist Fundamentalists and mainline Protestants, both of whom detached themselves from mass culture but for very different theological reasons. Rosenthal tethers these ongoing debates within Protestantism to broader Cold War concerns about the importance of religion in American identity and the embrace of science and technology in the Space Race. In her final chapter, she points out that neither end of the Protestant spectrum has changed their media stance even with the introduction of an infinite number of broadcast channels and the Internet. As examples, she points to the ponderous, text-laden websites of the NCC and the Christian Century in contrast to the visually arresting online presence of Christianity Today and the NRB. Rosenthal's analysis of Protestant leaders' rhetoric and published primary sources from major organisations in the 1950s helps to place Protestant media strategy into historical perspective. In an afterword, Martin E. Marty widens the context even further by looking at the role of media in the rise of global fundamentalisms. Rosenthal's well-researched account, with its detailed case studies, is a welcome contribution to the growing literature on religion and media.