Sensbach Reviews by C. Woodall
Reviews of Rebecca’s Revival
by Christopher Woodall
Riordan, Liam. 2006. “Rebecca’s Revival: Creating Black Christianity in the Atlantic World (Review)”. Journal of the Early Republic. 26, no. 2: 349-352.
Riordan praises Sensbach’s book and calls it an excellent tool for Atlantic-themed classes. Riordan mainly finds fault with the book by saying the following:
…greater attention to the demography of slavery and black conversion rates in St. Thomas, as well as a clearer sense of how well these
developments were known outside Moravian circles, might have provided
better support for Sensbach’s occasionally sweeping claims about
the importance of the book’s subject in providing an essential model for
later black Protestantism.—p.351
Edwards, Lillie J. (Lillie Johnson). 2008. “Rebecca’s Revival: Creating Black Christianity in the Atlantic World (Review)”. Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History. 9, no. 2.
Edwards not only praises the book but in completely uncritical. She especially approved of the books attempts to illustrate how Christianity both undermined and supported racism and slavery.
Meuwese, M. 2005. “J.F. Sensbach, Rebecca’s Revival: Creating Black Christianity in the Atlantic World”. CANADIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY. 40, no. 3: 594.
This is a very favorable review. The critiques of the book in this review are, in Meuwese’s words, “minor”. The biggest flaw in Mewuwese’s opinion is that Rebecca “occasionally disappears into the background”.—p.594
Carretta, V. 2006. “Jon F. Sensbach. Rebecca’s Revival: Creating Black Christianity in the Atlantic World”. AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW. 111, no. 3: 794.
The reviewer calls Sensbach’s work a “methodological tour de force”. Sensbach is also described as, “…a historian who can discriminate the known from the unknown, and more importantly the possible from the probably.”. —p.795
Sensbach, and Carol V R George. 2006. “Book Reviews – Rebecca’s Revival: Creating Black Christianity in the Atlantic World”. The Journal of American History. 92, no. 4: 1409.
George feels that Sensbach’s claims may be over-reaching in nature but ultimately asserts that the book is a must read for people who study women’s history or the African diaspora.—p.1410
Hodges, Graham, and Jon F. Sensbach. 2007. “Rebecca’s Revival: Creating Black Christianity in the Atlantic World. By Jon F. Sensbach”. Journal of the American Academy of Religion. 75, no. 1: 182-185.
This is another uncritical review hailed as “of interest to any student of early modern religion.”-p.185
Sensbach, and Aaron Spencer Fogleman. 2008. “Rebecca’s Revival: Creating Black Christianity in the Atlantic World”. The William and Mary Quarterly. 65, no. 2: 378.
This article also reviews Mohawk Saint: Catherine Tekakwitha and the Jesuits. (Allan Greer. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.) and Weiblich und fremd: Deutschsprachige Einwandererinnen im Pennsylvania des 18. Jahrhunderts. (Christine Hucho. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2005.). In reviewing these books as a group, Fogleman seeks to emphasize the agency of Native Americans, Africans and women. The review of Rebecca’s Revival is more descriptive than critical.
