Noll knows a lot about the history of religion in America and frames the Bible as his protagonist in this engaging, complex, and telling account of how Protestant America became Bible-obsessed in the long nineteenth century. This massive sequel to his formidable In the Beginning Was the Word: The Bible in American Public Life, 1492–1783 (2015) is interdisciplinary insofar as it combines the history of political rhetoric, pro- and anti-slavery arguments before the Civil War, women’s history, history of the book and publishing, African American history, and the impact of biblical criticism.

Noll attends to religious movements, innovations, and organizations that embraced biblicism, but also fairly channels individuals like Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Maria Stewart, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who often were better interpreters from outside ecclesiastical precincts than the preachers who occupied the then-popular pulpits of the years from the Revolution to World War I.

The net effect of...

You do not currently have access to this content.