Given the amount of ink that has been spent dealing with the political and religious developments in the American colonies in the eighteenth century, most historians have contented themselves with focusing on individuals such as John and Charles Wesley, George Whitfield, Isaac Watts, and Jonathan Edwards and the movements that they sparked. By contrast, few have explored how people dealt with the widely varying ideas that these figures promoted. Stephen A. Marini provides one such case study in The Cashaway psalmody. Marini's narrative is a self-proclaimed microhistory focused on Durham Hills and his minister the Revd Evan Pugh Jr, who were the two individuals involved in the inspiration and creation of the eighteenth-century Carolinian manuscript entitled The Cashaway psalmody. Marini skillfully weaves the stories of these two individuals within the broader contexts of the cultures of north-eastern England and north-eastern South Carolina in the eighteenth century. Despite its musical focus, this account is intentionally crafted for those who may not be as comfortable with musical topics. It therefore becomes a narrative of mediating religious dissent, reform and revival, along with political rumblings and musical developments.

Despite its laudable interdisciplinary breadth, readers may find it easy to lose the narrative thread amongst the many persons, subplots and religious developments recounted in The Cashaway psalmody. To help mitigate this, Marini has provided several helpful appendices that provide Hills's genealogies as well as relevant networks of individuals mentioned in the narrative. On the other hand, Marini is not as successful in navigating the relationship between Hills's manuscript Cashaway psalmody and the religious and devotional practices of those in the Carolinas. On the one hand, the volume was dedicated to one of Hills's pupils, Martha Pugh (pp. 187, 235), on the occasion of her marriage to the Revd Evan Pugh. Presumably the book would have been intended for her and her husband to use. However, Marini envisions a much broader audience for the book, including Carolina Baptists, Presbyterians and Congregationalists (p. 282). Insofar as Cashaway may include material that Hills would have used to teach music to the locals in South Carolina (who belonged to various churches), one can envision such an ecumenical goal. However, Marini attributes religious, political and nationalistic intentionality behind Hills's musical selections, even though the manuscript could just have been a collection of the settings that its dedicatee and her husband particularly enjoyed. To a lesser extent, it is unfortunate that Marini skirts the influence of Scottish psalmody both in north-east England and north-west South Carolina. Similar practices in songbook curation exemplified in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Scottish manuscripts such as the Wode Psalter, Robert Edwards's Commonplace Book, and William Stirling's partbooks (to name just a few) would add greater nuance to this practice that continued into the eighteenth century. Even so, Marini's The Cashaway psalmody remains a significant case study of eighteenth-century transatlantic music, and the grassroots efforts of individuals to deal with an ever-changing religious and political landscape amidst the struggles of everyday life.