"Fascinating insights into modern urban religious practice make Orsi's collection a must-read." --Publishers Weekly

"The essays provide insight into the cultural creativity, reinterpretation of worship and religious ingenuity of city people over the last 50 years." --Library Journal

"At last, a major dissection of the great mystery in modern American
life--how religion and spirituality prospered amidst industrialization,
urbanization, and rampant technological change after 1880 " --Jon Butler, Yale University

"Urban religion" strikes many as an oxymoron. How can...

Between Heaven and Earth explores the relationships men, women, and children have formed with the Virgin Mary and the saints in twentieth-century American Catholic history, and reflects, more broadly, on how people live in the company of sacred figures and how these relationships shape the ties between people on earth. In this boldly argued and beautifully written book, Robert Orsi also considers how scholars of religion occupy the ground in between belief and analysis, faith and scholarship.

Orsi infuses his analysis with an autobiographical voice steeped in his own...