The People Are Kind

""This is the first comprehensive survey of Iowa's religious history, and it is an important contribution to our knowledge of the state. The People Are Kind will be the standard book on the subject for many years to come. This is a thoughtful, humane, readable, and deeply researched book."" --Jeff Bremer, author, New History of Iowa ""I've long contended that Iowa is one of the most religiously diverse places on the planet, a claim amply documented by The People Are Kind. Bill Douglas's prodigious research and riveting narrative will introduce readers to colorful individuals like Lois Crawford, Pierre Bernard, Phineas Bresee, and Ida B. Wise Smith as well as religious groups ranging from Norwegian Quakers and the Beachy Amish to Buddhists, the Iowa Band, and the Community of True Inspiration. This is a superb book, one that will alter our perceptions of the history and culture of Iowa."" --Randall Balmer, John Phillips Professor in Religion, Dartmouth College ""With his religious history of Iowa, Bill Douglas fills a gaping hole in the historical literature on Iowa, and he does so with keen insight, generosity of spirit, inclusiveness, and wit as well as welcome attention to the public implications of religiosity. Reflecting the author's remarkably broad reading, the book is well-grounded in a wide range of secondary literature; it is thoroughly documented but just as thoroughly engaging."" --Marvin Bergman, retired editor, Annals of Iowa ""The People Are Kind offers the first comprehensive history of religion in Iowa from the land and its indigenous peoples to the present. The breadth and depth of Douglas's research will astound: the most obscure belief system is tracked. A fascinating read. In short, pithy paragraphs and in twenty-four short vivid chapters--each launched with engaging epigraphs--Douglas seeks 'to amplify and qualify national generalizations' and show again and again how religious dissension led to Iowa's notable religious diversity."" --Barbara Lounsberry, emerita professor of English, University of Northern Iowa