Choice Review

Davidson (emer., Purdue) and Pyle (Michigan State Univ.) have written a sociological study of religious stratification in the US, employing a conflict perspective on social inequality to identify religious in-groups and out-groups, prejudice, and competition for resources. They explore the origins, persistence, and change of religious inequality by identifying power relations, laws, ideologies, customs, and stratification from the colonial period to the present. This is a familiar story of a Protestant (Congregationalist, Presbyterian, and Episcopalian) power elite that came to dominate US institutions, but confronted the challenge of denominational diversity, competition, and immigration in the 19th and 20th centuries. Today, "elite Protestant groups do not control the nation's resources as much as they used to.. The authors conflate religion with race, ethnicity, immigration status, and social class and reduce religious identity and affiliation to a measure of social inequality. In addition, the analysis of religious inequality fails to explain adequately the complexities of US religious history, which include evangelical awakenings, theological controversies, regional and sectarian developments, and transformation of religion after WW II. Summing Up: Recommended. General and undergraduate libraries. J. H. Rubin St. Joseph College