Catherine Booth: A Biography of the Cofounder of the Salvation Army
Turn on almost any channel late at night and you're likely to find some modern-day, Elmer Gantry leading a crowd of myrmidons. With such goings-on, it's hard to find serious, scholarly treatment of such figures as Catherine Booth, cofounder with husband William of the Salvation Army. Green (biblical and theological studies, Gordon Coll.) has filled the niche nicely with this treatment, which goes beyond earlier adulatory works such as W.T. Stead's Mrs. Booth of the Salvation Army (1900), Catherine Bramwell-Booth's Catherine Booth: The Story of Her Loves (Hodder-Stoughton, 1970), and Frederick de Latour Booth-Tucker's hagiography, Life of Catherine Booth: Mother of the Salvation Army (1892). Green, a Salvation Army layperson himself, gives ample space to Booth's own words from letters and published writings. The effect is measured but articulate. Green is remiss only in insinuating that Booth was an early feminist owing to her views on women preachers, which is to mistake form for essence. With an excellent bibliography and bibliographic essay; highly recommended.?Mark Y. Herring, Oklahoma Baptist Univ., ShawneeCopyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.