Crossing the Water: A Photographic Path to the Afro-Cuban Spirit World – By Claire Garoutte and...

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such as statistics or interviews with people who embodiedthis transformation, Shires’ thesis remains tentative. Still,while Shires may not fully convince the liberal left and con-servative right that they share a common heritage in thecounterculture, Shires’ narrative successfully suggests, atthe least, a surprising kinship.

AnneMarie KooistraBethel University

POPULIST SAINTS: B. T. AND ELLEN ROBERTSAND THE FIRST FREE METHODISTS. By Howard A.Snyder. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.,2006. Pp. xx + 979. $39, ISBN 0-8028-2884-1.

Meticulously researched and exquisitely footnoted,Snyder’s book will be the biography of record on this pair.Snyder tells of a pious Methodist couple whose lives andcareers stretched across the tumultuous decades of the nine-teenth century. In some ways, they were microcosms of thesignificant political, social, and cultural events during theirlives. Yet in other ways, they were key actors in the forma-tion of the Free Methodist Church. In terms of historiogra-phy, Snyder attempts to revise the hagiography of previousbiographers, including the Roberts’ son. Yet Snyder laudstheir faith and accomplishments, opening his book with anote of gratitude for the millions of souls reaching heaven asa result of the Roberts. Snyder’s most important addition tothe historiography is his use of Victor and Edith Turner’stheories to interpret the “liminal” years 1855-60 in whichB. T. Roberts was expelled from the Methodist Church andbegan forming the Free Methodists. Snyder sees these yearsas a rite of passage for B. T., one taking place during themiddle of his life. There can be no argument that Snyderis a good historian, and the merit of this book’s researchdeserves an audience in universities. Likewise, Snyder thetheologian also offers this book as a didactic to would-bepopulist saints in seminaries. Students at both institutionswould benefit from this book.

Barton E. PriceFlorida State University

THE NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY. FROMJONATHAN EDWARDS TO EDWARDS AMASAPARK. Edited by Douglas A. Sweeney and Allen C. Guelzo.Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic Press, 2006. Pp. 320;bibliography, index. $29.99, ISBN 0-8010-2709-8.

Edwards has long been recognized as America’s theolo-gian and his Calvinism has been long studied and appropri-ated by succeeding theologians and philosophers, not toforget literary figures. Specifically, he was adopted by latenineteenth-century Reformed theologians and in the twenti-eth century by powerful strands of American Evangelicalism.This focus on Edwards has all but obscured his immediate andlater disciples, and it is this omission this volume seeks torectify. This volume of scarce documents is divided into nineparts, starting with the thought of Edwards himself and thenproceeds to provide original materials illustrating the move-

ment of New Divinity, Edwards’s views of God’s moral rule,ethics, slavery, mission, human experience, theology in NewHaven, Finney and the New Measures, concluding with twoparts devoted to the Edwards Amasa Parks and the wholeCalvinist movement as remembered by H. B. Stowe. Apartfrom the figures noted earlier, extracts from J. Bellamy, S.Hopkins, T. Dwight, S. Osborn, N. W. Taylor, and J. Edwardsthe younger and others are offered. An essential text for allinterested in the intellectual history of New England and thesuccessors to the Calvinist movement there through tomodern times.

Iain S. MacleanJames Madison University

The Americas: Central andSouth AmericaCROSSING THE WATER: A PHOTOGRAPHIC PATHTO THE AFRO-CUBAN SPIRIT WORLD. By ClaireGaroutte and Anneke Wambaugh. Durham, NC: Duke Uni-versity Press, 2007. Pp. xiii + 258. $24.95, ISBN 978-0-8223-4039-3.

Written by two photographers, this book is a delight ofboth black-and-white and color photos documenting the reli-gious life of a priest of Santería, Palo Monte, and of Espirit-ismo in Santiago de Cuba on the eastern side of the island.After a short introduction, each chapter highlights oneaspect of Santiago Castañeda Vera’s religious practice. As itfocuses on the rituals performed by a single person (togetherwith his godchildren), the book has a certain idiosyncraticquality. The photographs that form the heart of this bookhave been lovingly edited to catch the dynamics of the ritualsdocumented within the form of still images. The text, mainlywritten in a first-person narrative style, expands andexplains the photos so that the reader comes away feeling asthough they also experience these rituals in some measure.The price of this book is astonishing given the productionqualities—almost every page has one or more photographs ifnot devoted to one print, all printed on high-quality paper.This would be a wonderful addition to both private andlibrary collections with an interest in Caribbean religions.

Mary Ann ClarkYavapai College

South AsiaSRI KRSNA : THE LORD OF LOVE. By PremanandaBharatı. With an introduction by Gerald Carney. Edited,annotated, and prefaced by Neal Delmonico. Kirksville, MO:Blazing Sapphire Press, 2007. Pp. cii + 353. $35, ISBN0-9747968-7-5.

This is a hypercorrected edition of what is likely the firstbook on theistic Vaisnavism published in the West, in 1904,

Religious Studies Review • VOLUME 34 • NUMBER 3 • SEPTEMBER 2008

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