This book is for anyone who wants to understand "the shaker experience in America". I have to admit, it is a bit dry and text book like but this book is factual and dispells many myths that people have about the shakers. A must for anyone interested in this religion , in addition to visiting a Shaker site or museum collection

Ann Lee said "Do all your work as though you had a thousand years to live, and as you would if you knew you must die tommorrow." That sentiment carries much of the flavor of the American Shaker sect and acts as a guiding principle for understanding their history.

And that history is important, particularly if you want to understand the US during the nineteenth century. These highly successful communities managed to contribute to the fabric of a nation while living out their ideals of celibacy, simplicity of life, separation from the world, and community of goods. Industrialization and the US Civil War caused the circumstances that led to their inevitable decline, as the new country became more interested in class struggle than utopian visions.

Extremely interesting reading.

Having visited the Shaker Handcock site during 1997, I became interested in the Shaker experience. Found this publication to be well researched and written so that it kept ones interest and provided material that took the reader inside the whole concept and idea that they believed in. Would recomend this book to anyone with an open mind and who enjoys different subjects and views.

this is a very needed work gathering a great deal of the extant material on the Shakers, their origins, travels, history, contributions and legacy. I highly recommend this scholarly book. My chief criticism is that it is written in, perhaps, too erudite a fashion. It is certainly not geared to the "average" reader but it's intent does seem to be toward a more sophisticated audience. I did not care for the repetitive reminder of other Shaker written contributions that the author believes to be too romanticized. All in all, however, this book is very interesting