"Relentlessly honest in his sympathetic examination of group after group."--The New York Times Book Review

"[A] very important and provocative book."--Religious Studies Review

"[Moore's] knowledge is...enyclopedic and insight recurrently arresting."--Times Higher Education Supplement

"This group of essays is perhaps the most...instructive new interpretation to appear in the field of American religious history in a decade."--American Quarterly

"This well-written, well-argued book raises important questions to sort out our confusion of tongues. It is in the best sense provocative."--The Catholic Historical Review

"Should be required reading for American students of new religions. It challenges several premises widely accepted by sociologists working in this area."--Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion

"[A] provocative book....Heightens our appreciation of the ingenuity and organizational genius of such founders as Joseph Smith, Mary Baker Eddy and Charles T. Russell....Its telegraphic and tantalizing style will surely spark innumerable and fevered discussions on the connection between pluralism and religious originality and deviance."--Cithara

"[A] scholarly and insightful volume."--CHOICE

"A stimulating and complex work....Inimitably provocative in its candor, its freshness, and its foundation on the best of contemporary scholarship."--Church History