A History of Catholic Church in South, 1513-1900. By James M.Woods. (Gainesville: University of Florida Press. 2011. Pp. xviii, 498. $69.95. ISBN 978-0-813-03532-1.) Citing James O'Toole's Faithful: A History of Catholics in America (Cambridge, MA, 2008) as recent example of Catholic historians who have tended to overlook their own denomination within (p. xiii), James Woods sets out to provide concise, well-documented overview of Southern Catholicism through 1900. Woods's South extends beyond eleven Confederate states to include Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Southern Catholicism forms a tapestry of faith - rich heritage of Roman Catholicism that had been present in southern region since sixteenth century (p. xv). Part 1, The Colonial Context, 1513-1763, explores Catholic origins in Spanish Florida, Spanish Texas, French Lower Louisiana, and English Colonies. Part II, American Republicanism and European Decline, 1763-1845, examines Southern Catholics in new republic, church and state as European empires erode, and Church in expanding South. Part m, Resistance, Rebellion, Reconstruction and Regionalism, 1845-1900, concludes with chapter on growth, expansion, and limited role of Catholic immigrants compared to North. Woods, who has written extensively on Arkansas Catholicism, weaves his tapestry from modern scholarship, census data, and original documents into readable narrative. growth of local church is interspersed with numerous thumbnail sketches of early bishops; of clergy such as Jeremiah O'Neill (a priest of Savannah), Thomas O'Reilly (a Georgia priest who served at notorious Andersonville prison camp), and Abram Ryan (priest-poet of Confederacy); of religious men and women such as St. Katharine Drexel of Sisters of Blessed Sacrament, Mercy Sister Austin Carroll, and Capuchin Father Antonio de Sedella of New Orleans; and of laity such as Charles Carroll, Daniel Rudd (whose life is traced after five national Congresses of Colored Catholics), and William Joseph Gaston (called the most highly respected Catholic in antebellum North Carolina, p. 247). Woods's narrative is enriched with frequent, interesting details such as Bishop Dionisio Resino 's 1709 appointment as La Florida's first resident bishop and his rapid departure, state-by-state expansion of religious freedoms in early Southern colonies, beginnings of Georgetown University, 1850 and I860 status of Irish immigrants in South, fate of three Maryland Catholics associated with John Wilkes Booth, and Little Rock diocesan archives document explaining Bishop Edward Fitzgerald's vote against papal infallibility at First Vatican Council. …