Book cover of Quakerism: The basics, by Margery Post Abbott and Carl Abbott
Quakerism: The basics, by Margery Post Abbott and Carl Abbott
Authors: Margery Post Abbott and Carl Abbott. Review by Rhiannon Grant
This is a considerable achievement: a book that balances size, scope, readability and rigour to produce something short, yet with a wide range of material. It is also easy to read while retaining accuracy and original sources. Published by Routledge as part of ‘The Basics’ series, it comes into a relatively-crowded market of introductions to Quakerism, but does something distinctly different. It covers similar content to Ben Pink Dandelion’s An Introduction to Quakerism but Quakerism: The basics is more approachable for the general reader. It has a much wider international scope than my Quakers Do What! Why? and a more formal tone, serious rather than lively. The most similar existing book is in the parallel series from Oxford University Press, Pink Dandelion’s The Quakers: A very short introduction. But, with just slightly more space, Quakerism: The basics is able to cover more ground, figuratively (for example, including more from the eighteenth century) and literally (giving more attention to Africa and South America).
