Will C van den Hoonaard, a Professor of Sociology at the University of New Brunswick, has been a Baha'i for over thirty years. He is Senior Editor of the international Baha'i encyclopedia project.
``van den Hoonaard has produced a book that I am sure will be
considered for many years to come, not only as the standard history
of the Canadian Bahãi'ã community but also as a model for anyone
wishing to produce a history of any Bahãi'ã community or indeed of
any religious movement.'' -- Moojan Momen -- Bahãi'ã Studies
Bulletin
``Van den Hoonaard's dual perspective makes this book of interest
to both historians and sociologists of religion. Anyone interested
in the Bahãi'ã faith will find the book a very useful
introduction.'' -- Henry G. MacLeod -- Canadian Book Review
Annual
``The research was conducted over a period of ten years. The result
is an exhaustive detailing of how the Bahãi'ã faith came to be
established in Canada--where it occurred and who was involved....
The strength of van den Hoonaard's account is the detailed research
on members....The fact that he is able to study the contours of the
religion over a relatively long time span makes the study
particularly interesting and unusual. It is also the only extensive
study of the Bahãi'ã community in Canada. As such, it will be of
surpassing interest to all Canadian Bahãi'ã s, and a useful
addition to the sparse sociological literature on specific
religious groups in Canada. -- J. Graham Morgan, Dalhousie
University -- Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology
``While taking a narrative historical approach, van den Hoonaard
also demonstrates considerable familiarity with the sociological
literature on new religious movements, noting where the Bahãi'ã s
follow or depart from the patterns of other groups.... [T]he book
provides a wealth of information about how a new religion sank its
roots deeply into Canadian soil.'' -- Robert H. Stockman, DePaul
University -- Nova Religio
``Will van den Hoonaard has performed a commendable service to
sociologists of religion by providing one of the few sociological
analyses of a national Bahãi'ã community.... Overall, van den
Hoonaard accomplished his objectives. His solid scholarship reveals
the struggles of the early Canadian Bahãi'ã community, and its
growing identity as an independent religious movement with maturing
institutional boundaries.... Van den Hoonaard provides sociologists
with an important text for comprehending the extensive array of
religious movements in a pluralistic cultural marketplace.... His
combination of qualitative and quantitative methodology is
skillfully woven into a coherent narrative of the early history of
the Canadian Bahãi'ã community.'' -- Mike McMullen, University of
Houston-Clear Lake
``One of the book's strengths is the author's ability to bring out
the eminent ordinariness of the early Canadian Bahãi'ã s and how a
typical population cross-section of any town could accomplish
something so extraordinary. The prime importance of this book is it
shows that in order to understand how a foreign religion can
implant itself in a new environment, multiple paradigms for
different periods in time are needed.... The author's research has
produced a theory, that of `religious singleness,' which merits
further investigation by scholars. Religious singleness refers to
individuals who belong to a religion different from that of their
family members, colleagues, and associates....It is hoped that the
author's theory and work receive the attention they deserve in the
academic world.'' -- Loni Bramson-Lerche -- The Journal of Bahãi'ã
Studies
``Meticulously and with myriads of details, van den Hoonaard has
succeeded in uncovering the history and identity formation of this
group which today numbers 15,000 out of a world total of about 5
million members.... What van den Hoonaard has accomplished with
this book is the backbone of all research. Without such thorough,
time-consuming, empirically oriented studies it is impossible to
advance our general understanding of new religions.'' -- Margit
Warburg, University of Copenhagen -- Studies in Religion
``Van den Hoonaard's study is an important contribution to
much-needed `detailed research onnon-Christian or non-Western
styles of religious communities.' Methodologically, this book
standson sound ground. Both interpretive historical sociology and
the sociology of social movementsprovide the conceptual framework
that guides, along the contours of a `shifting theoretical
paradigm,' van den Hoonaard's analysis....The author adroitly and
seamlessly combines both quantitative and qualitative research
methods to provide `fresh theoretical orientations.''' --
Christopher Buck -- University of Toronto Quarterly
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