Book Review

Sacred Song in America: Religion, Music, and Public Culture. By Stephen A. Marini. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003. ISBN 0-252-02800-7 (cloth). Pp. 440. $34.95.

How Sweet the Sound: Music in the Spiritual Lives of Americans. By David W. Stowe. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-674-01290-9 (cloth). Pp. 368. $27.95.

“The culture of a people is an ensemble of texts, themselves ensembles,” remarks Clifford Geertz in The Interpretation of Cultures. The substitution of “sacred music” for “culture” would yield an equally valid assertion. A domain in which multiple facets of culture intersect, sacred music encompasses an “ensemble of texts” intrinsically suited to interdisciplinary study. This is the premise upon which Marini’s and Stowe’s books rest. Both authors set out to examine wide segments of American sacred music from an interdisciplinary perspective. They meet the challenge estimably, producing markedly different volumes: Marini’s is an intensively analytical tome that situates his ethnographic research within scholarly discourses; Stowe’s is a work of synthesis presenting research drawn from an array of sources as an episodic historical narrative. Both books exhibit flaws not uncharacteristic of works of vast scope, but each offers copious knowledge and insight regarding many aspects of American sacred music.