Religion in the North American West

Readers interested in the role of religion in American history might share the frustration of two scholars who noted in 2010 that "religion is everywhere in American history, but nowhere in American historiography." This collection takes an important step toward correcting that shortcoming: Its dozen essays place religion at the center of the history of the American West and explore how region and religion influenced each other from the nineteenth century through the late twentieth century. Topics range from mainstream denominations to new religious movements and include essays on peyotism, spiritualism, Pentecostalism, Catholicism, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Branch Davidians, and the relationship between spirituality and nature. Thematically, essays address the U.S.-Mexico border, race and ethnicity, and relationships between church and state. The contributors represent disciplines of history and religious studies, include established senior scholars as well as emerging new scholars, and speak from a variety of faith backgrounds. A hybrid of religious studies and regional history, the essays in this collection offer an important contribution to the ongoing project of understanding the dialectical relationship between religion and region.