Description: Hempton explores the rise of Methodism from its unpromising origins as a religious society within the Church of England in the 1730s to a major international religious movement by the 1880s.
Review Quotes: "David Hempton's "An Empire of the Spirit is "a tremendous achievement in bringing to fruition a global perspective on the history of Methodism-a massive religious movement that no other historian knows as well or has explored with such discerning vision. The heart mattered to Wesleyans everywhere, and that heart, Hempton makes clear, was as torn as it was warm. With his transnational scope, Hempton reveals the inner tensions of the people called Methodists, their antinomian feelings and self-improving disciplines, their populist gusto and bourgeois restraint, their inwardness and expansionism. This is an important book on an important movement."-Leigh E. Schmidt, Princeton University