Richard Allen (1760–1831) has become an iconic historical figure as probably the best known African American leader in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. His involvements as the founder of a major black denomination, as a principal spokesman for Philadelphia's black population, as an anti-slavery and anti-colonization advocate, and as a pioneer in black economic development establish him as a required presence in any narrative about early American and African American history. Though ministers and members of the African Methodist Episcopal Church still celebrate his birthday annually on the second Sunday of every February, the bishop's significance goes far beyond his hagiographical status in AME lore. The subject of Allen's broader importance is what Richard S. Newman tries to capture in this superb new biography of America's first black elected and consecrated bishop.

Newman believes that Allen's historical impact lies in two unexplored areas. First, Newman presents him as a black founding father in the American nation. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and others in the pantheon of national patriots adopted and articulated a civic language that affirmed divinely ordained rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for the American citizenry. This terminology defined the new nation and seemingly insured the freedom and equality of its inhabitants. This lofty rhetoric, however, narrowly applied to a special stratum of the population and ignored those who were not propertied white males. Richard Allen recognized that this freedom language did not include African Americans especially the majority who were slaves. As an ex-slave himself, Allen, in his daring and creative role as a pamphleteer, joined the public discourse about liberty and citizenship and pressed claims for the rights of blacks and urged the abolition of slavery. Because Allen inserted himself into these civic discussions, Newman convincingly asserts that he and his contemporaries—namely Absalom Jones, Phyllis Wheatley, and James Forten—belong to this enlarged enclave of founders of the American republic. Newman asserts that white founding fathers were not alone in occupying the discursive space where discussions took place about liberty and to whom these God-given rights belonged. They shared this rhetorical arena with Richard Allen who eulogized George Washington and offered opinions about issues pertaining to the body politic. Juxtaposed to the freedom rhetoric of white patriots stood Allen's commentaries about how the United States should be envisaged.

Second, Newman is mindful of recent scholarship in the field of Atlantic World studies. These scholarly works explore the colonial era, overseas expansion, and the early national period by examining the intricate interactions of peoples in the Americas, Africa, and Europe. When the black experience is viewed within these extensive transatlantic contacts, a larger view of Allen and his multiple activities emerge. Hence, his connections to the new republic in Haiti, his cooperation with black emigrationist and ship captain Paul Cuffee, his opposition to the international slave trade, and his ties to Morris Brown, Denmark Vesey, and other Charleston blacks whose incubated insurrection against slavery in AME meetings demonstrate the wide reach of Allen's Atlantic World involvements. Many of these facts about Allen are familiar, but Newman's fresh perspective deepens his scholarly treatment of the bishop and his place within these Atlantic World contexts.

There is a third area, however, where Newman is less daring and repeats conventional wisdom about Richard Allen's faith formation. Hence, a rigorous interrogation of Allen's Methodism cannot be found in this otherwise provocative biography. He adopts the familiar descriptions of Allen's sobriety and upright and abstemious living often associated with Methodists. Allen's Wesleyan beliefs went deeper than these exterior characteristics and should be shown as the link between his salvific and social witness. Allen internalized Methodism and talked in terminology that most Wesleyan followers recognized. When he was converted and recounted the experience in his autobiography, he noted that his “dungeon shook” and his “chains flew off” (40). This phraseology drew from Acts 12:7 and from the third stanza in Charles Wesley's widely sung hymn, “And Can It Be That I Should Gain an Interest in the Savior's Blood.” His conversion narrative resembled the testimonies of other Methodist believers and anchored Allen in a salvific process where the sanctifying power of the Holy Ghost brought renewal to the individual and deliverance from sin. This spiritual holiness emanating from his religious being spilled over into social holiness in which Allen, the Wesleyan adherent, sought the renewal of self and society in order to remake both into the image of Christ. Hence, Allen's spiritual and social holiness help to explain his expansive involvements in church and civic affairs. Moreover, his background with Methodists and their racially egalitarian attitudes and actions in sacred and secular settings became the standard by which he judged the peculiar behavior of whites at St. George Church. Their spiritual declension was manifested in racist behavior and reckless disregard for the inclusivity that Methodists formerly had championed. Racists among the Methodists were corrupting the Wesleyan movement, and Allen launched African Methodism as a new reflection of the religious experiences and interactions that led to his conversion and commitment to Methodist evangelicalism. There is more to Allen's Methodism than what Newman presents especially the relationship between his Wesleyan beliefs and his blended religious and public ministries. Though these religious facets of Allen's life are not fully explored, Newman correctly notes that Methodism empowered the ex-slave both spiritually and socially and enabled him to function fully as a self-reliant clergyman and citizen.

The Allen whom Newman describes was tenacious and simultaneously solicitous and manipulative of whites. Also, he was tough-minded in business, both as an employer and property owner. All of these same attributes aided his unyielding fight against white Wesleyan attempts to take control of his black church, and these characteristics also explain his success in establishing an independent African American denomination. Scholars and students, already familiar with Allen, will know him even better after reading the Newman biography.