America's Christian Story
American religion is not simply Christianity that happened to land in America. It was changed by the place — made more democratic, more entrepreneurial, more divided. These are the books that explain how, written by the historians who set the terms of the field.
Every purchase supports independent bookstores.
A Religious History of the American People
The monument. Still the fullest single account of American religion, with a concluding chapter by David Hall bringing it forward. Buy on Bookshop →
The Democratization of American Christianity
The argument that changed the field: the Revolution turned American Christianity over to ordinary people, and the churches have been chasing them ever since. Buy on Bookshop →
Jonathan Edwards: A Life
A great biography of a difficult man, and the best available window onto colonial New England's mind. Buy on Bookshop →
Fundamentalism and American Culture
How a movement formed, lost the public argument in the 1920s, and rebuilt. The third edition carries the story to the present. Buy on Bookshop →
The Civil War as a Theological Crisis
Both sides read the same Bible and prayed to the same God. Noll asks what it did to American theology that Scripture could not settle the question. Buy on Bookshop →
Baptists in America: A History
Four centuries of the tradition, from persecuted dissenters to the largest Protestant body in the country — told without defensiveness. Buy on Bookshop →
The Rise of Evangelicalism
Volume one of the History of Evangelicalism series: Edwards, Whitefield and the Wesleys, and the transatlantic revival that made a movement. Buy on Bookshop →
America's Religious History
The readable one-volume survey to start with if Ahlstrom is too much. Kidd is a careful historian writing for ordinary readers. Buy on Bookshop →
Shop these on Bookshop → Back to the History Shelf →
New lists are added through the season — subscribe to The History Shelf to get each one.