"Robert Wuthnow has produced another informative, provocative, and important book. Partly a history of survey research about religion in the United States and partly a sustained criticism of low-quality surveys and naive interpretations of survey results, Inventing American Religion provides an opportunity to ponder again the strengths and limits of surveys and the ways in which surveys help to construct, rather than merely reflect, developments in American religion." -- Mark Chaves, Journal of Religion "As one of the leading researchers and scholars in the sociology of religion, Robert Wuthnow is perfectly positioned to provide considerable insight into the process and production of sociological research into religion. This work provides interesting historical context to some of the most famous studies in the field. This book will be of interest to those who are interested in the history of those famous studies, those who are interested in polling and sociological research methods, and those who are interested in the social construction of knowledge itself. Readers will be challenged to reconsider what they think they know about what it means to be religious."--V. Jacquette Rhoades, Reading Religion "Based on survey research, Robert Wuthnow has written some of the most widely read books about American religion.

Here he turns a critical eye on surveys and polls. As only Wuthnow can, he shows that numbers cannot speak for themselves, that Americans have gone too far in letting surveys and polls define our faith experiences for us. Anyone who cares about how we count the past or future of American religion should read this book." --Elaine Howard Ecklund, Herbert S. Autrey Chair Professor of Sociology, Rice University "Wuthnow''s Inventing American Religion offers a remarkable portrait not just of the history of religious polls and surveys in the United States, but also how these methods of research have shaped - if not sometimes distorted - the development of religious categories. The book is packed full of insights about the role of polls and surveys in studying religion, at times attempting to capture new trends, and other times labeling those trends and offering new maps for portraying this ever-changing territory. A must read for scholars and journalists alike interested in American religion." --Wade Clark Roof, J.

F. Rowny Professor of Religion and Society Emeritus and Research Professor "Inventing American Religion is an important contribution to our expanding map of twentieth-century American culture and religious life, framing a way to understand how public understandings of ''American religion'' were shaped and continue to be influenced by the rise of surveys and public polling. Wuthnow brings both a sociological insider''s first-hand knowledge of the promises and problems of polling and survey techniques, and an historian''s interest in the complexity of American religious life to this lively study. The result is a rich, rewarding, and thought-provoking book about the complex role that polling and surveys continue to play in shaping Americans'' public understandings of what it means to be religious." --Courtney Bender, Professor of Religion, Columbia University "Written at a level for advanced undergraduates and early-career graduate students, the book has worked well in my courses on contemporary American religion and social scientific methods. That Wuthnow sometimes understates his harshest criticisms means that readers and instructors must amplify his soft-spoken advice, but these qualities also make the book rich for close reading and discussion." --American Academy of Religion "In this clear, timely book, Wuthnow explores a subject both ubiquitous and curiously elusive to critical engagement. Wuthnow narrates the history of religion polling to raise questions about how Americans self-understanding is constructed and managed.

The narrative is staged via numerous well chosen historical episodes, each illustrating Wuthnow s concern about the lack of critical interrogation of and insufficient nuance within polls."--Religious Studies Review.