Citizens of Zion

the long version

One of America's most enduring forms of public worship, the camp meeting had its beginnings at the dawn of the nineteenth century during the "Great Revival" that swept the newly settled regions of the young republic. The culmination of this phenonenon came in 1801 at Cane Ridge Presbyterian meetinghouse in Kentucky, where more than ten thousand people gathered for a week of worship and fellowship. To trace the origins of the camp meeting, Ellen Eslinger follows Kentucky's development from its initial settlement in 1775 to the eve of the Great Revival. Citizens of Zion does more than explain a particular instance of religious revivalism; it explores the creation of a new form of worship that enabled people to relate more comfortably to a changing society through an intense collective experience.