Irving Berlin's popular musical of 1948, Easter Parade, starring Fred Astaire and Judy Garland, opens with a wonderful shopping scene. It is the day before Easter, 1911. Astaire's character, Don Hewes, sings and dances his way along the streets of New York past a dry-goods store and through millinery, florist, and toy shops. “Me, oh, my,” he sings, “there's a lot to buy. There is shopping I must do. Happy Easter to you.” In the millinery store saleswomen model elaborate Easter bonnets and mellifluously offer their wares: “Here's a hat that you must take home. Happy Easter…. This was made for the hat parade on the well-known avenue. This one's nice and it's worth the price. Happy Easter to you.” Everywhere Hewes goes he buys things—a bonnet, a large pot of lilies, a toy bunny. By the time he leaves the florist, he has purchased so many gifts that he is followed by three attendants who help carry all the packages. Don Hewes is a consumer on a spree, and Easter is the occasion for it.

In 1822, from his Conway home in the shadow of New Hampshire's White Mountains, one Dr. Porter surveyed the nation's religious landscape and prophesied, “in half a century there will be no Pagans, Jews, Mohammedans, Unitarians or Methodists.” The prophecy proved false on all counts, but it was most glaringly false in the case of the Methodists. In less than a decade, Porter's home state became the eighth to elect a Methodist governor. Should Porter have fled south into Massachusetts to escape the rising Methodist tide, he would only have been buying time. True, the citizens of Provincetown, Massachusetts, had, in 1795, razed a Methodist meetinghouse and tarred and feathered a Methodist in effigy. By 1851, however, the Methodists boasted a swelling Cape Cod membership, a majority of the church members on Martha's Vineyard, and a governor in the Massachusetts statehouse.

The study of evangelical moral reform has become one of the most fruitful areas of research in American religious history. By looking at reform, particularly voluntary societies, social and political historians have acknowledged the cultural importance of religion. Thus, nineteenth-century evangelicals have been recognized for their positive, negative, or ambiguous contributions to American society. Often with great success, historians have expounded and promoted interpretations of social control, capitalist expansionism, and neo-Marxism regarding evangelical social action. Yet, in spite of differing nuances, many of these interpretations follow much the same story line: antebellum evangelicals attempted, however nobly or misguidedly, to impose their standards of piety and morality on the American public. They feared the chaos released by the American and French revolutions.

Catholic participation in the southern civil rights movement culminated at Selma in March 1965. As was customary in much of the South, Selma's Catholic churches were strictly segregated, with the priests in charge of the African American “mission” parish ignored by the city's other clergy. (One attempt at integration of the city's “white” parish by a group of African American Catholic teenagers met with fierce resistance.) In addition, the bishop of Montgomery, Thomas Toolen, attempted to prevent northern Catholics from responding to the pleas of civil rights activists for assistance, maintaining that outsiders were “out of place in these demonstrations—their place is at home doing God's work… .” Regardless, priests from fifty different dioceses, lay people, and nuns flocked to Alabama to join in the marches.

What are some recent works on Native American religions that make good additions to courses on American History? With this question, the editors framed their charge for this review. This is a good moment to pose such a question because of the recent upsurge in publishing on the subject of Native American religious life. The treatment of some recent books is outlined in three stages that cover three ways of including Native American religions in courses: framing questions, case study, and key themes.

Of course, teachers teach best within the compass of their own interests. This is where their passions reside and where there is the deepest motivation to communicate clearly with others. There is much to be interested in and passionate about in the recent publications on Native American religions.