Reviews

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"Presenting the history of the Catholic Church in the American South to 1900 in a single volume is an imposing endeavor. By attempting this feat James Woods reveals both his ambition and his talents for delivering a thorough and compelling synthesis of a deep, broad, and mature historiography. Woods skillfully compiles a diverse collection of secondary sources and complements their analyses with his own insightful research, producing a detailed narrative that spans almost four centuries and connects the stories of southern Catholics of different races, nationalities, and traditions of practice. Wood's digestible writing style and fluid chronology make subtle this theme and others, allowing the individual stories of southern Catholics to drive the reader forward. Particularly impressive is Woods' ability to address fundamental but diverse elements of both Catholic and southern history in a manner that neither detracts from his larger narrative nor trivializes those individual elements. He lucidly includes analyses of slavery, efforts by the Church to proselytize, the effects of shifting populations, and tensions between Catholics and non-Catholics. All the while Woods gives adequate treatment to the history of the Church as an institution as well as to the common experiences of the lay Catholic population of the South. This diversity of foci is perhaps the greatest success of the author in this work. Leaves the reader with a near-complete picture of the life of the Church in this region, achieving his goal of revealing a Catholic population not fractured by time, place, and nationality, but rather united by a common religious experience that withstood myriad external and internal pressures."
--Southern Historian, XXXIII

"An introduction to some of the best research available on the historiographical landscape of southern Catholicism and an invitation to engage this scholarship more fully."
--Florida Historical Quarterly

"The author's skillful narrative weaves the reader through all the periods and all the dioceses without creating a sense of being dislocated from one place and period to another."
--American Catholic Studies

"One of a kind: the only book to survey the first four hundred years of the Catholic Church in what would become known as the American South." … "Woods has performed a great service to the fields of American Catholic history and southern history."
--Journal of American History

"A comprehensive, well-documented, and interesting overview of the Catholic experience in the South through 1900. [Woods] has succeeded well in his objective of providing a solid resource on early Southern Catholicism."
--Catholic Historical Review

"imparts a tremendous amount of detail about Roman Catholicism in the American South
--Katherine E. Rohrer, Arkansas Historical Quarterly

"Since no one has hitherto treated Roman Catholicism within the South as a whole, Woods's book is a welcome contribution."
--The Journal of Southern History

"Scholars will appreciate how the author assembles this sweeping history."
--American Historical Review

“A highly readable synthesis of four centuries of southern Catholicism… helps to create a more nuanced and vibrant picture of religious life in the American South.”
--Catholic Southwest

An informative detailed overview of the South’s oldest Christian denomination.
--South Carolina Historical Magazine

Woods demonstrates the supreme importance of the See at Baltimore. . . . in overseeing the growth of Catholicism nationwide in the 1800s.
--Church History

A thorough and compelling history of the Roman Catholics in the U.S. South. . . . Woods successfully endeavors to produce a much-needed updated synthesis of the history of southern Catholicism.
--H-Net

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