A Religious History of the American People

Sydney Ahlstrom's is the standard one-volume religious history of the United States, running from the European background and colonial establishment through revivalism, immigration, the Black church, the western movements and into the twentieth century, and it remains the work later historians of American religion measure themselves against. This atlas uses it narrowly and states that use plainly: it is cited on state entries as the general reference a reader can open to check a state's religious geography, and it carries no single dated claim of its own here, since where a state's description turns on one named event this atlas cites a source on that event alongside it. Use it for a state's general religious historical background; a claim resting on one specific named event needs the dedicated source cited alongside this one.