CONTENTS:

From holy commonwealth to the strange compromise of 1789 -- Creating an American common school and a common faith: Horace Mann and the Protestant public schools, 1789-1860 -- Who defines what is common? Roman Catholics and the common school movement, 1801-1892 -- Literacy in the African American community: church and school in slave and free communities, 1802-1902 -- Native American religion, Christian missionaries, and government schools, 1819-1926 -- Protestant, Catholic, Jew: immigration and nativism from the Blaine Amendment to the Scopes Trial, 1875-1925 -- Prayer, Bible reading, and federal money: the expanding role of Congress and the Supreme Court, 1925-1968 -- Culture wars, creationism, and the Reagan revolution, 1968-1990 -- Changing school boards, curriculum, and the Constitution, 1990- -- What's next? Prayers, vouchers, and creationism: the battle for the schools of the twenty-first century.