In this work, Smith demonstrated how a sympathetic approach to the revivalists and reformers can yield different conclusions from social control historians like C. S. Griffin or Charles Foster. In antebellum revivalism, Smith discovered little that religious elites could control or exploit, but rather saw the reform impulse as a constructive Christian response to the problems of the age. Furthermore, he virtually rejected Turner's frontier thesis as applied to church history, believing that late-antebellum revivalism and reform were urban phenomena stimulated in part by events across the Atlantic. Finally, Smith emphasized the importance of widely-held theological ideas as sources of social behavior. His work is an important contribution to the social organization approach to antebellum reform, but like the work of many church historians, it has not received its fair share of attention from other scholars. I highly recommend this work for students of antebellum religion and reform. My main criticism is that it dismissed too quickly the theological influence of Calvinism in reform thought. For an interesting counterpoint, see Leo Hirrel's Children of Wrath.