Fruits and plains: the horticultural transformation of America

theran community.Their book goes a long way toward making their case in an irenic tone.Personal relationships nurtured at the synod's colleges and single seminary fostered Augustana's ethos; that is well documented here.The focus on Augustana, rather than on the entire range of Swedish American churches, makes the argument for institutional continuity.Augustana's position in the spectrum of Lutheran doctrine and piety in the United States gave it a particular mediating role in cooperative ventures and twentieth-century mergers; that is less central to the book, but clearly told.The book is organized into four chronological parts and 20 thematic chapters.The authors split responsibility for chapters, allowing each to draw on prior research and expertise.Although the seams between their work are not visible, the strategy yields some repetition, which is more instructive than distracting.The volume contains an admirable interweaving of social, cultural, and theological concerns.Its concerns range from congregational life to negotiations over church polity.Topics such as assimilation, music, and women's ordination are treated in sidebarlike, self-contained sections varying in length from a paragraph to a few pages.Photographs interspersed throughout the text help readers visualize the times and the people: for example, Emmy Evald and the Women's Missionary Society Board in 1916, a group of mid-twentiethcentury youth at a summer conference, and American and Swedish church leaders in clerical garb at an ecumenical gathering.Some, but not all, of the topical sections are included in the table of contents; there is no list of illustrations.An index allows readers to trace subplots or accounts of specific enterprises, such as foreign missions.The ten tables in the appendix give ready access to data such as membership statistics, founding dates of schools, and the Synod's presidents.The suggestions for reading section points toward primary and interpretive works concerned with the narrow subject of the book; reference notes reveal a wider range of archival, historical, and contemporary sources.