The text is accessible to any student or scholar interested in the Early Republic, daily life of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, and Shakerism.

This biography is so rich and multi-dimensional that it becomes far more than simply a contribution to Shaker studies In particular, it should have special appeal to anyone interested in pioneer life on the midwestern frontier, the dynamics of religious revivalism during the Second Great Awakening, and the development of religious music during the early nineteenth century.

Carol Medlicott’s choice to allow Bates to speak for himself through his autobiography, poetry, and music gives her fine biography a wonderful sense of immediacy.

How a rough-talking, hard-drinking ex-soldier became a Shaker preacher is an intriguing story, and Carol Medlicott has done it justice. Her biography of Issachar Bates will add immeasurably to our understanding of Issachar Bates’s life and times, and his significance to western Shakerism.

Medlicott masterfully exploits the historical and religious sources that shed light on Bates’s diverse roles in western Shakerism. Her narrative breaks new ground and attains the highest level of biography.