parents cannot exit parenthood (p. 143). Similarly, Americans have increas ingly thought that all religions are acceptable, yet when you pick one, you are supposed to be fully committed to it (until you leave it for another). I, for one, have never thought of the literature on religious pluralism and religious switching in this insightful way. Fischer is somewhat less clear in showing the causes of the growth of vol untarism. While the goal is to show that this is the result of growing material security and comfort, this particular link is often implicit and not explicit. In some chapters, this link is discussed in the final paragraphs, and it is often hard to see how the cause led to the effect. For example, the growth of clubs and associations is well documented, Bu, why economic growth or increased material security would lead people to create clubs remains unclear. With increased material security, why did frontier Americans not take up whittling? That said, perhaps I demand too much in that it is hard to imagine exactly how Fischer would demonstrate this connection with the historical data avail able to him.