Religion Update Fall 2014: Religious History Broadens its Scope

A generation ago, church history was the trending topic in American religious history books, with Protestant titles dominating. Sidney Ahlstrom's 1972 doorstopper, A Religious History of the American People, was the granddaddy of them all. The relative simplicity of Ahlstrom's narrative, which placed mainstream Christianity at the center and other forms of religion on the margins, has been turned on its head by a crop of new titles that redefine the field's scope and methodology.