JBASR 20 (2018), 192-195 ISSN: 2516-6379 BOOK REVIEW Book review editor: David G. Robertson david.robertson@open.ac.uk Evangelicalism in America. Randall Balmer. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2016. 199pp. ISBN: 1481305972. Reviewed by: Alex Fry, Durham University. alex.d.fry@durham.ac.uk The question of the rise and decline of religious expressions globally has received much scholarly attention in recent years, and many note that institutional churches are in decline in the west. Within this social and intellectual milieu Randall Balmer wrote Evangelicalism in America. Comprised of a mixture of updated lectures and academic articles, this monograph charts broadly the rise of evangelicalism in the US to (what he understands as) its contemporary turmoil. Balmer’s monograph begins with a helpful preface where the background to the text is explained and useful definitions are provided. In the first chapter, Balmer argues that American Christianity has contributed to the historic and present conservatism of US politics. He claims that the First Amendment to the US Constitution has historically directed political malcontents from the political sphere to the privatised sphere of American religion. He suggests that the multiple options on offer to Christians enable them to partake in a form of church life of their preference and so social discontent is channelled in this direction rather than via politics. In order to demonstrate this, he draws selectively on key historic figures and events in American history, whilst making comparisons with European parallels and divergences. It is these that provide the socio-political-historical context to evidence his argument. In the second chapter, the history behind anti-intellectual interpretations of the Christian Bible is mapped by tracing their European origins, particularly the impact of Scottish Common Sense Realism, the great awakenings, and the reaction to scholarship from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. The third chapter builds on this and explains how literalist understandings of the Bible were coupled with church growth. For example, Balmer notes how Baptists did not require the education of their clergy and so could ordain from within their own structures, rather than be externally reliant on the provision of leaders. This chapter also discusses the social impact of literalist readings. In particular, Balmer notes how millennial interpretations of the New Testament