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Title: Peculiar Prophets: A Biographical Dictionary of New Religions by James R. Lewis ISBN: 1-55778-768-9 Publisher: Paragon House Publishers Pub. Date: 01 May, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95

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Average Customer Rating: 4 (1 review)

Rating: 4
Summary: Misleading title, fascinating topic
Comment: This is a useful and very interesting collection of biographies of founders, prophets, and leaders of new religions. Most of the figures are from the twentieth century, but a few are from as early as the sixteenth. The biographies are objective and informative, providing in one convenient place a great deal of esoteric knowledge about modern religion. I especially enjoyed going through the entire dictionary, discovering how dominant certain themes are among these people, such as poor education and childhood illness.
I only have two complaints. The first is---buyer beware!---the title is misleading, suggesting coverage of new religions in general. The truth is that this is a dictionary about new religions that have had a significant impact on the United States, with almost no exceptions. The coverage of U.S. religion seems to be comprehensive (including some very odd new-Pagan, etc. figures who don't seem to have a wide following--but a plus is that the author includes some very interesting Native American holy people); it just wasn't what I expected from the title. A second criticism is that the volume has a really impressive bibliography---but all references are listed alphabetically at the end of the book, rather than citing the applicable works after each entry, where they would be much more useful.