Steven M. Avella has written well-researched, finely written diocesan histories—notably of Milwaukee and Sacramento—whose hallmark has been the integration of the institutional religious history of the area with the social and economic context. He continues this tradition with this history of the Des Moines Catholic diocese of southwest Iowa from the beginnings of European settlement until the end of the episcopate of Maurice Dingman in 1986.

Avella's history was commissioned by the diocese and has many of the typical attributes of such works: chronological organization by chapters on the successive bishops’ episcopal terms; detailed descriptions of the founding of churches, schools, and other diocesan institutions; and mini-biographies of noteworthy Catholics of the diocese. A particular strength of the book is Avella's often insightful and moving descriptions of the lives of the bishops and their priests (and some nuns and laypeople), based on private correspondence from diocesan archives. The author has a gift for detailing their conflicts with each other as well as their inspiring conduct.

In addition to satisfying the expectations of a conventional diocesan history, the book also lives up to Avella's claim that it is “a different kind of diocesan history,” namely, “a case study of the impact of religion on society” (xix) that shows the interdependence of the “sacred and secular” (xvi). Avella does this by relating a myriad of accounts: railroads and town-boosters promoting Catholic settlement in the nineteenth century, priests in a railroad “chapel car” combating anti-Catholic prejudice in heavily Protestant rural areas in the 1920s, cooperatives and rural settlements forming in accordance with Catholic social teaching in response to the Depression, Catholics supporting declining family farms and urban minorities in the 1960s through the 1980s, and churches and schools closing because of the priest and religious shortage in recent decades. Through these and many other well-told stories, Avella, in narrating the development of one, mostly rural midwestern diocese, practically presents a microcosm of the history of the Catholic Church in the United States.

The book highlights certain aspects of the diocese's history, such as the visit of Pope John Paul II to Des Moines in 1979 and the resolute efforts of Dingman to realize the ideals of the Second Vatican Council by his implementation of collegiality in all levels of diocesan decision-making, his promotion of the role of lay people, and his pursuit of social justice. Given the time frame covered in the book, it is not surprising that only passing reference is made to the sexual abuse crisis.