Harrell's magisterial analysis of the social thought of the Restoration Movement in America from 1865 to 1900. While the book cannot avoid a discussion of the factors (religious, socioeconomic, and cultural) that led to the division between the Disciples of Christ and the Churches of Christ, the book focuses mostly on the attitudes toward the social issues of the day, especially as evidenced within the major papers of the day, liberal, moderate, and conservative. The issues include labor unions, temperance, women's rights, African-Americans, Native Americans, immigration, Roman Catholicism, politics, urbanization, various matters of morality, and the "Social Gospel."

Voluminously researched and cited, Harrell provides the full spectrum of views among Disciples of Christ regarding these issues and demonstrates that the internal turmoil and conflict within the Restoration Movement is parallel to the internal turmoil and conflict within the United States, especially Protestant/Evangelical America, during the same time period.

The work remains fairly even-handed and mostly free from polemic/biased language, although the use of "sectarian" to describe the conservative Southern element could be perceived as slanted, even if it conforms to accepted historical standards of language to describe such religious groups.

On the whole, an indispensable guide in understanding the history of the Restoration Movement. ( )