“This book is built on an incredible range of sources, and Rubin’s theoretical treatment of conversion is both welcome and excellently done. A must read for those interested in the religious dimensions of Indian politics in the early nineteenth century.”—A. R. McKee, Choice
“Rubin has successfully captured the image of a nation forged by widespread evangelical peoplehood in nineteenth-century America that titillates the reader's intellectual and emotional sides. Bolstering his career-long work as a religious and cultural scholar, Rubin engages readers in an expertly crafted interdisciplinary work that appeals to scholars, students, and the eager novice interested in religion, history, and sociology.”—Kara Jo Wilson, Chronicles of Oklahoma
"In Perishing Heathens: Stories of Protestant Missionaries and Christian Indians in Antebellum America Julius Rubin holds a magnifying glass up to the lives of early settler evangelicals and Native American converts. As a historical sociologist, Rubin explores individuals, both Native and non-native, many of whom are underrepresented in the historical record."—Rachel R. Luckenbill, Transmotion
"Rubin provides a clear account of antebellum evangelical Protestant culture that demanded the salvation of the "perishing heathens.""—Linda M. Clemmons, Church History
"Perishing Heathens is most successful as a study of missionary culture."—Sarah Koenig, Journal of Southern History
"Utilizing powerful storytelling, Julius Rubin tells the story of Christian Protestant missionaries and those they sought to convert among Native Americans. . . . As Rubin explores the relationship between native peoples and those who sought to convert them, he shows that issues of fear and power were at play, as the United States seized land and control and missionaries demonstrated a lack of theological understanding of the purpose of their work."—Teer Hardy, Reading Religion
"The rich portraits of converts and missionaries that Perishing Heathens paints will be of interest not only to any reader seeking to understand the missionary spirit of nineteenth-century America, but also to those trying to understand the new Protestant religiosity. As most of the missionaries had ties to Connecticut, readers get a vivid image of its fervent and proselytizing religious climate during the Second Great Awakening."—Nathan Bryant Braccio, Connecticut History Review
"Rubin has written one of the most emotionally sensitive and psychologically insightful examinations of the individual Christians who were members—or the indigenous first fruits—of antebellum missions to Native Americans."—Joshua M. Rice, Fides et Historia
“Perishing Heathens breaks ground in American religious and cultural history and in postcolonial studies. Rubin’s dual focus on missionaries and Christianized Indians of the early republic reconsiders the impact of evangelical Protestantism on individuals—Native, mixed, or white—and recasts the old binaries between indigenous and settler, colonized and colonizers.”—Jennifer Snead, associate professor of English at Texas Tech University and editor of The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation
“I found this book to be a valuable source on this important period and a thought-provoking treatment of this very challenging subject.”—Kathleen Bragdon, author of The Columbia Guide to American Indians of the Northeast
