Abstract
In Holy Nation, Sarah Crabtree charts the beliefs and values of the Religious Society of Friends during the age of revolution. She focuses particularly on the intersection of religion with the politics of nation and empire throughout the Atlantic world. Crabtree argues that Quakers embraced and appropriated the Zion tradition to ensure consistent belief, attitudes, and common purpose during the years of the war for independence, the French Revolution, and Napoleonic Wars. She posits that, by comparing themselves to the “Israel of old,” Quakers likened their suffering and devout belief to that of the Israelites. The Society of Friends saw themselves as a distinct and chosen people. As the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries unfolded, Quakers argued that their beliefs fell under God’s law, not the laws of empires or nation-states. The Friends’ pacifist beliefs and “guarded education” of young members placed them at odds with growing states. However, Crabtree explains, Quakers found themselves unable to remain united in agreement about Friends’ place in the world.