The First Great Awakening of American history had a significant impact upon the American colonies. While the political, social and theological significance of the religious revival of the 1730s and 1740s has been the subject of numerous fine studies, relatively little has been written on the actual sermons that helped precipitate the awakening. Choiński explores both the stylistic and persuasive aspects of the language of the Great Awakening and the minutiae of the sermons of six revival preachers. The volume consists of three parts. The first reviews the rhetorical process of composition and its significance for the colonial preaching tradition. In order to uncover the most important characteristics of awakening preaching, Choiński analyses the elements of classical oratory and how Christian preachers employed them. The second part surveys the cultural and historical context of the Great Awakening. Choiński examines the rhetorical traditions of the two generations preceding the Great Awakening as well as the particular social and intellectual context of Great Awakening preachers. In the third part, Choiński examines ten Great Awakening sermons. This detailed review includes three sermons by Jonathan Edwards, three by George Whitefield and one each by Gilbert Tennent, Jonathan Dickinson, Jonathan Parsons and Andrew Croswell. Choiński carefully probes each sermon to uncover the rich and diverse tradition of revival preaching while at the same time highlighting the distinctive similarities and differences of each preacher. Choiński makes a substantial contribution to the study of the Great Awakening. His volume helps to explain exactly why Great Awakening preachers captured the imagination of thousands of people. These preachers did not simply make the evangelical Gospel intelligible, they made it real. In other words, the linguistic creativity of the revival preachers triggered an emotional reaction from their listeners. The study also explains why the rhetoric of revival had a formative impact upon subsequent generations of evangelicals. Two minor quibbles merit mention. Oddly, the chapters are unnumbered. Second, the volume could have been made even more useful for classroom use if the ten sermons had been included in the volume. Although Edwards's ‘Sinners in the hands of an angry God’ is easily accessible, others are not. These two misgivings, however, do not detract from the insight that the work offers. The rhetoric of the revival does more than fill a lacuna in American religious history. It offers a compelling analysis of the rhetoric of revival preaching and sheds even more light on what made the Great Awakening such a formative event in American colonial history and on the evangelical tradition that emerged out of it.