The idea and structure of this book are intriguing; study the history of religious diversity across the board in a single state of the United States, in this case, the state of Iowa. It has long been a commonplace that all politics is local, but this book expands that idea to religion; all religion is local. Iowa is an interesting test case for such an idea; right in the middle of the United States, it has an astonishing diversity of religious expressions and groups, including a diversity of Native Americans, a strong Roman Catholicism and a plethora of Protestant groups, the first mosque in America, a Transcendental Meditation university, and a Hasidic community, along with many recent immigrants and their religious communities. Iowa straddles the upper Midwest and the upland South, between the East and the West. Although it does not have a major American urban center, it is possible to find in Iowa almost any kind of religious expressions that one might encounter elsewhere in the United States.

The basic approach of the book is chronological, beginning with Native American religion and ending with the latest immigrants from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Within this chronology, the chapters have a thematic unity, focusing on the larger developments of religion, society, and politics into which each subsequent group of arrivals to the state begin to develop their own religious communities. After the arrival of the European Americans, the major players in the state are the Roman Catholics, Methodists, and Lutherans, who have formed its religious structure, and who, still today, are its major religious groups. But after these initial beginnings, the narrative shifts to other arrivals and newly developed groups; other old-line Protestants, Baptist, Holiness, and Pentecostals, communal groups like Amana, Mormon splinter groups, Muslims, Jews, and others. In the 20th century, the narrative shifts to the ways in which Iowan religious groups react to the major religious, social, and political developments in the wider United States, including fundamentalism and modernism, the depression and world wars, down to the present.

While the basic approach is chronological, as its narrative moves along, the book gives small, two to three page summaries of each of the newly arriving or newly developing religious groups, as they come into the state. This approach really works well for the period between the Civil War and World War I, and from the 1960s to the present, and provides a very helpful portrait of these groups as they add their distinct religious identities to the ever-expanding religious mosaics of the state. These summaries are linked together in the chapters with the growth of the state itself, larger movements in the United States, and the ways in which these groups interact with each other. These interactions were not always peaceful (the people are not always kind), but on the whole, Iowans have attempted to live in religious peace with each other, and their history provides a model of how American religious diversity could work elsewhere.

The combination of chronology and the capsule of newly arrived or developed groups does, however, have its limitations, especially in the chapters on the 20th century. The basic problem is one of proportion and balance. This approach does work well in identifying the smaller groups as they arrive and are established but misses the development and influence of the larger groups. While there is a later chapter on Roman Catholicism, beyond the initial developments, there is very little in the narrative about the two major Protestant groups in Iowa, the Methodists and the Lutherans. Once their beginnings are established, the Methodists and the Lutherans fade into the background (they are good at that) and only appear occasionally in the narrative. Seeing as the three of these religious groups constitute the majority of religious Iowans, their development in the 20th and 21st centuries is an important element of Iowa’s religious history, and it is unfortunate that this is not emphasized more. At 476 pages, it would be difficult to expand the narrative even further, but this is important and should be developed.

The research that went into this book is impressive. It is copiously footnoted, and the author has consulted most of the important archives in the state. The bibliography verges on the encyclopedic, running to a full sixty-six pages of sources, although, at times there are some curious omissions. The text of the book includes a large number of quotations from religious Iowans, and their voices add to the value of the narrative. There are two maps included; however, the graphic of the location of the larger religious groups in each Iowa county on page 9 is printed in grayscale, and it is therefore very difficult to interpret clearly.

Overall, this is a fine and very helpful book, and one that ought to be a model for scholarly attempts for other states and regions of the United States. It made for fascinating reading and certainly adds to our understanding of religion in the American Midwest, and the country as a whole.