Songs of Zion: The African Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States and South Africa
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Overview
Songs of Zion focuses on the African Methodist Episcopal Church, black America's oldest and largest independent church. Campbell charts the origins and evolution of African American independent churches, arguing that the very act of becoming Christian forced black Americans to reflect on their relationship to their ancestral continent. The book then turns to South Africa, examining the AME Church's entrance and evolution in a series of specific African contexts. The final third of the book is devoted to what Campbell calls "middle passages," to the careers of men and women who moved between South Africa and the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Throughout the book, Campbell focuses on the comparisons that Africans and African Americans themselves drew between their situations, arguing that the transatlantic encounter enabled both groups to understand and act upon their worlds in new ways.Synopsis
Discusses the interaction between the African Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States and in South Africa, arguing that each group influenced the other to understand and act on their worlds in new ways.
Editorials
From the Publisher
A wonderful example of the best of comparative religious history.Religious Studies Review
A major contribution to a genre just beginning to appear, what one can only call transatlantic history.
Transition
A sweeping, powerful, vibrant study.
Frederick Jackson Turner Award committee
Campbell's analysis is illuminating, important and in some ways courageous.
American Historical Review
Prodigiously researched, well crafted, and insightful.
Journal of American History