Heathen, Hindoo, Hindu

Altman successfully disrupts and expands the typical narrative about Hinduism in America by carefully documenting encounters with South Asian religious practices, objects, and texts. He also precisely details how notions of America as a white Protestant democracy and chosen nation were formed against representations of India as dark, uncivilized, and despotic. Altman's book is well-researched, well-organized, and well-written. His argument showing how Americans constructed their identity and religion through differences and similarities with an imagined Other is compelling and insightful. He makes a valuable contribution to academic discourse and public conversation about Hinduism in the American religious landscape. * Patrick Horn, American Vedantist *
This book is a valuable contribution to the larger 'What is 'Hinduism'?' question that persists in religious studies. But rather than focusing on the role of European colonialism in the formation of a stable 'ism,' Altman focuses on the US: the literature, and the propagation/replication of particular Orientalist tropes that in turn reified American Protestantism and nationalist identities. The genealogy is thorough and detailed. While such discussions typically focus on the European Orientalists such as Mill, Mueller, or Macauley, tracing the discourse through American writers is both refreshing and insightful. * Juli L. Gittinger, Reading Religion *
This book promises to become an important resource for studies of American Hinduism, American history, and religious studies. Packed with fascinating sources and incisive analysis.... Heathen, Hindoo, Hindu is an excellent history, which will help readers see the nineteenth century precedent for our contemporary politics of Hindu representation. * Bulletin Book Reviews *
Heathen, Hindoo, Hindu also contributes to a growing body of literature in American religion that has criticized the narrative of American religious history as one of ever-increasing pluralism, with particular attention to how the category of religion functions to manage difference ... Beyond its contributions to the fields of American religion and Religious Studies, I can imagine this book, or any of its individual chapters, working well in undergraduate and graduate courses on American religion, religion and Orientalism, or critical approaches to religious studies, to name only a few. * Society for U.S. Intellectual History *