Rejecting an idealized version of American tribal life, a historian tells a complex story. Read full book review >

In a series of generally sage essays, historian Smith (Democracy on Trial, p. 767, etc.) forsakes public chronicles for the private kind as he describes the passage toward a destination from whose bourne no traveler is likely to return. Read full book review >

The evacuation from their homes and relocation to internment camps of Japanese-Americans during WW II had, Smith (Rediscovering Christianity, 1994, etc.) contends, at least one positive result: by toppling the existing immigrant social structure and changing the course of lives, it sped up the process of assimilation. Read full book review >

From prolific historian Smith (Killing the Spirit, 1990; Redeeming the Time, 1986, etc.): a genealogy of democracy that rejects Max Weber's ``Protestant ethic''—which equates democracy, Christianity, and capitalism—and instead places the democratic impulse squarely in the Christian communalist tradition. Read full book review >