Reviewed by: Gods in America: Religious Pluralism in the United States ed. by Charles L. Cohen, Ronald L. Numbers Sarah K. Nytroe Gods in America: Religious Pluralism in the United States. Edited by Charles L. Cohen and Ronald L. Numbers . New York : Oxford University Press , 2013 . 416 pp. $35.00 . For professional historians, and students alike, who are often immersed in a specialized area of research in American religion, Gods in America offers a thematically organized collection of essays that steps back from merely examining the historical specifics of a single religious tradition and reminds readers of the diversity and pluralism of the American religious landscape from the colonial period through the present. A host of well-established scholars in the fields of history, religious studies, and sociology provide synthesis and analytical essays. Organized into five parts, the collection begins with disciplinary overviews of religious pluralism. The following two sections take as their subject matter, first Protestantism, Catholicism, and Judaism, those traditions that dominated the American religious [End Page 68] landscape through the mid-twentieth century, and then, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism, religions and cultural influences that became part of the religious and social landscape more fully in the second half of the twentieth century. Finally, essays in the remaining two sections examine the influence of religious pluralism on different facets of American life, including gender, race, civil religion, international diplomacy, and the law. Several common features emerge across these essays: the development and existence of religious diversity in the United States; the cooperative and often conflict-laden nature of religious pluralism; the diversity between (Abrahamic faiths and non-Abrahamic faiths) and within religious traditions; and the influence of religion on the political, cultural, and spatial development of American society. Scholars and students interested in the relationship of American religious traditions with domestic and international politics can look to the essays by Charles H. Lippy and Paul Boyer, which examine the shifting value of affirming religious diversity over the second half of the twentieth century and the religious interpretations and perspectives of America’s role in global politics, respectively. Lippy and Boyer’s essays overlap, as do many other essays in the collection. The thematic and topical intersections establish connections among related discussions of religious pluralism and enhance the coherence of the entire collection. For those unfamiliar with Buddhism and Hinduism in the United States, the essays by Thomas A. Tweed and Joanne Punzo Waghorne offer brief discussions of the historical development of those traditions along with historiographical overviews that provide a foundation for further reading and research. Lastly, this collection offers examinations of religious pluralism that highlight sites of interaction, like geography, space, and internal diversity that have not yet assumed mainstream status in the scholarship on American religion. Bret E. Carroll looks at several examples of religious spatial contestation that not only involved competing religious communities, but other social and political interest groups. Moreover, Stephanie Y. Mitchem looks to [End Page 69] shake the scholarly community from its complacency regarding the diversity within and pluralism of African-American religion. Professors of undergraduate students, and particularly a graduate population, should find value in this collection for both the overviews of and attempts at defining religious pluralism amid the current scholarship, while also choosing essays that align more specifically with their own areas of study in American religion. Sarah K. Nytroe DeSales University Copyright © 2014 American Catholic Historical Society