The bridal customs are fun to read. Our author has a
wonderful sense of humor. The costumes are described in
detail, the descriptions also delightfully readable.

There are 16 beautiful color plates of the costumes and many
black and white photos, all modeled by intriguing dolls such as
you would find modeling the costumes in a museum..

There are numerous simple line drawings illustrating the parts
of the costumes. Along with the pictures and detailed
descriptions, this book will be a doll costumer's delight!

From his descriptions of tuberculosis itself ("...once established in the lungs, or the bowel, in the throat, in the kidneys, in the eye, or in the very marrow of the bones, [it] festered on and on, impervious to all efforts to cure it, seemingly indestructible. No antibiotic would ever kill such a germ, protected by its thick impenetrable waxy coat.") to his characterizations of the work of scientists such as Waksman, Schact, Lehmann, and Domagk - Ryan has created a work like no other.

Even these brilliant scientists, attacking the disease in every conceivable way, have only temprarily halted its advance against mankind. Its ability to mutate, resisting all known treatments -in combination with new diseases such as AIDS - have raised the terrifying spectre of a renewed disease capable of killing billions more. Nerve-wracking and enlightening, Ryan's work serves as a clarion call to renewed action against TB.

I came to Lambert now after wading through a score or so of recent books on this -- tracts, I'll call most of the others, because they were nearly all horribly-biased. This has been part of a personal project to explain, and defend, the extraordinary depth and richness of US religiosity to some overseas friends. Foreigners never do understand how we can have such strong religious activity and belief, here in the US, while at the same time we maintain a "wall of separation" between church and state.

Lambert does an admirable job of explaining this -- and he does it fairly, with great balance, and with wonderful style in his writing. He has a point of view himself, but he does not let it become a bias -- anyone possessing any of the many opinions which exist, on these issues, can get much out of reading this book.

Lambert is a master of the topical and well-timed historical anecdote: he weaves these together, gently, in an entertaining and informative account of the US Colonial record on the difficulties of accommodating "varieties of religious experience". But he also has a keen historian's eye for the value of generalizations. He confines his text very carefully to his chosen historical period, 1600-1800. But he is not at all afraid to draw out a universal theme, occasionally, from his account of what those little bands of English expatriates and descendants of same were doing, or thought they were doing, back then in their "13 colonies".

So we get the intriguing suggestion that the world -- or at least the Western European and particularly the New World American British Colonies part of it, but not just that last -- was proceeding, during that period, from a religious politics dominated by the clergy to one governed by the individual -- and perhaps that, more than quarrels over belief, is what the fuss was all about... "The central question for the Founders had not been religion's role," he asserts, "Rather, they worried about religion's place, deciding in the end that it would fluorish more through persuasion... than through government coercion." (p. 206)

And, along the same lines, Lambert gives us the suggestion -- this one heard in the French Revolution as well -- that more than a matter of doctrine the religious changes of the times were political, again, and more of a shift in power from Ministers to Lawyers -- "Lawyers, not clergymen, took the lead in challenging Parliament's new imperial policies..." (p. 210). So the US Revolution certainly changed US politics, but unlike the French the US Americans still were free, afterward, to believe whatever they wanted to believe in matters of religion.

Lambert's "Introduction" ought to be mandatory reading for anyone interested in current issues in these areas. As already mentioned, the body of the book is devoted to careful, balanced, US Colonial history: interesting stories, intriguingly presented, but meticulously crafted so as not to become the sweeping over-generalizations and "moral lessons" so often presented in other literature on this subject. In his Introduction, however, Lambert is not afraid to take a shot at characterizing current controversies: and it is a very careful and balanced and complete one --

"This study looks at the cultural and political boundaries that circumscribed the Founders' decisions and actions," he warns in his Introduction (p. 8) -- his implication, at least, being that passionate controversies today have their "contexts" as well...

"During the last two decades of the twentieth century and continuing into the twenty-first, Americans have engaged in a culture war... On one side of the debate are those who insist that America has been since its conception a 'Christian Nation'... They blame 'liberals' for not only turning their backs on the country's religious heritage but openly attaching those who embrace 'traditional' Christian values... these conservatives often conflate the planters -- such as the New England Puritans and the Chesapeake Anglicans -- and the Founders into one set of forefathers...", Lambert says.

But in addition, "Partisans on the other side of the culture war also consult the nation's Founders for a 'usable past' of their own. They, too, tend to conflate the two sets of progenitors by making both the Founding and the Planting Fathers impassioned champions of a religious freedom that extended liberty of conscience to all..."

The book presents a really interesting controversy, then: good history, and also invaluable ammunition for both sides in the current fight, hopefully for use in moderating their own extremist positions and coming to a better understanding -- an understanding of the necessities for change, if those exist, but also of the reasons for maintaining continuity, as those do too.

In a time of White House "faith-based initiatives", and of Department of Justice "Moslem" roundups, and of Supreme Courts which grant certiorari to "Under God" cases, Lambert's book should be required reading -- not just for religion classes, but also for history classes and law classes and decision-makers, and for all members of the general public... who either do or do not love the US... There is a great deal of wisdom about what makes the US a strong and good place, in this book.

Jack Kessler...