Scott McLaren's well-researched monograph once again illustrates how much genuine insight Canada's religious history can deliver for historians of the United States, even as the book also clarifies long-standing debates about the Canadian past. In this case, the payoff concerns the character of early North American Methodism, the capacity of transborder religious communities to transcend national political divisions, and especially how publishing can shape crucial institutional developments. The key actor in Pulpit, Print, and Politics is the Methodist Book Concern (MBC), which was established in New York City in 1798 and was for long thereafter the chief supplier of hymnbooks, pamphlets, periodicals, and the works of John Wesley for Methodists throughout North America. McLaren stresses that Methodist publishing stood out in this era of burgeoning evangelical print with its unique denominational emphasis. In the United States even after the North-South schism of 1844 and in English-speaking Canada into the 1830s, denominational leaders continually stressed that when Methodists bought from the MBC, they not only received edifying literature, they also upheld Methodism as a religious movement and—significantly—strengthened the movement, since profits from the MBC supported retired itinerants, missions to Native Americans, and other denominational enterprises. In McLaren's words, the MBC “made claims on the identities of its customers on both sides of the border in ways that were as successful as they were pioneering for the time. . . . Making money was not its sole or even primary aim” (7).

The book's careful attention to the relationship of Canadian Methodism to the MBC turns out to explain much about this exceedingly complicated history. To simplify, the story begins with the intimate ties of early Methodists in Upper Canada (later Canada West and then Ontario) to Methodists in upstate New York. Until the War of 1812 upset relations between the U.S. and British North America, and until the more conservative Wesleyan Methodists from Britain began to operate in Upper Canada, the Upper Canadian Methodist District functioned as an integral part of the cross border Genesee Annual Conference—with its denominationally focused literature supplied by the MBC. After those developments, the American ties of Canadian Methodists drew fire from Anglicans (who aspired to serve as Upper Canada's established church) and their allies in the elite “family compact” that ruled the province. The Wesleyans also charged Canadian Methodists with promoting the disruptive principles of American republicanism. Yet when, in 1828, the (American) Methodist Episcopal Church created a new Upper Canadian Conference, access to discounts from the MBC continued, as did sharing in the MBC's profits devoted to Canadian Methodist causes.

At about the same time, Egerton Ryerson, a young but well-educated itinerant preacher, became the leading voice for the Canadians when he publicly rebuked the well-connected Anglican cleric John Strachan, who had called out Methodists as illiterate enthusiasts infected by the evils of American democracy. Over the next two decades, Canadian Methodists walked a tightrope. They continued to enjoy reasonably good relations with their American fellows, and they continued to appreciate access to MBC publications at a discount. Yet for a time, in order to dispel charges of undue American influence, they agreed to order literature from the Wesleyan's London Book Room, despite the higher costs. Tangled negotiations with the Wesleyans led to a merger of all Upper Canadian Methodists in 1833, then a collapse of the merger in 1840, but then its renewal in 1847. Amid this confusion, significant changes took place in Canadian Methodist publishing. Ryerson and his friends brought out their own magazine, and they established the Toronto Book Room as an independent publisher (though not producing much in its early years). They also arranged to keep receiving material from the MBC at a steep discount but—crucially—to promote their literature for its reasonable prices and market it to all takers. By the 1840s, despite many twists and turns that McLaren narrates clearly, the Canadian Methodists enjoyed remarkable success. Their numbers were increasing, they were benefiting from MBC discounts, they had overcome the stigma of American republicanism, and leaders like Ryerson had won the trust of the larger public. The genius of the book is that it shows how publishing decisions illuminate every stage of this complicated history.

McLaren also makes a convincing case for why Methodist public influence came to differ so much in the two North American countries. In the U.S., despite its standing as by far the largest Protestant denomination, Methodism exerted less of an impact on the general public than, say, the Presbyterian ministers who took the lead in religious pronouncements during the Civil War or independent evangelists like Charles Finney and D. L. Moody. McLaren's explanation is that American Methodist publishing, though a huge enterprise, remained concentrated on a Methodist constituency, continued to stress its service to denominational causes, and paid scant heed to the national market. By contrast, once Canadian Methodists abandoned the earlier denominational strategy of serving only Methodists, their trajectory immediately influenced the nation more broadly. An important marker of that broadening was the appointment of Egerton Ryerson, who had gained prominence when he attacked Upper Canada's elite establishment, to an elite position as Canada West's first Chief Superintendent of Education. Then, through successive incarnations (the Toronto Book Room, the Methodist Book and Publishing House, and, from 1919, the Ryerson Press), Methodists were responsible not only for directing Canada's most significant religious press but established that press as the most dominant publishing enterprise of any kind in the entire country! That publishing history, in turn, explains why Canadian Methodism became “not merely a church in the nation, but a church for the nation” (194)—that is, why Methodists in 1925 played such a central part in forming the United Church of Canada and the Ryerson Press became the official publisher of this new denomination with its lofty hope to serve as the Protestant voice of the Canadian people.

In this excellent publishing history, McLaren occasionally simplifies matters of cause and effect, for example claiming that early Canadian Methodists purchased Methodist reading material “chiefly” for reasons of “denominational solidarity” (45)—when maybe spiritual encouragement from the pamphlets and hymnbooks may have been “chief” for at least some readers. Quibbles aside, McLaren's altogether convincing book demonstrates how important it is for historians to “follow the books” as well as “follow the money.”