A Common Grave

“By switching historical lenses, Juster reveals a panorama of colonial activity and expansion, a world teeming with Catholics.”—London Review of Books

“Unfolds as an exhilarating rendering of religious experience, identity, choice, and material culture, one that is both sympathetically imagined and meticulously analyzed. . . . When Juster turns to explore ritual, she considers theology, material culture, and the racial identities and economic statuses of participants, offering wonderfully complex analyses of the religious worlds of early Americans.”—William and Mary Quarterly

“A Common Grave is a triumph of historical writing and historiographical intervention. Juster’s sympathetic treatment of her subject comes after exhaustive consideration of multiple disciplines and specialized regional literatures.”—American Historical Review

“Through imaginative and assiduous research, Juster brings a mostly hidden population to life: Catholics in English America. Her remarkable study invites the reader to imagine the lived experiences of the faithful—fidgeting with a rosary, furtively recognizing a priest, or worrying about how to travel safely through a hostile jurisdiction. By moving a marginal and poorly understood population to the center of her analysis, Juster opens entirely new perspectives on the English Atlantic.”—Alison Games, Georgetown University

“Written in lucid prose, and supported by prodigious research, A Common Grave challenges preconceived divisions between Protestant and Catholic to reveal a world of commingling and hybridity along with secrecy and disguise. Juster has given us a riveting and judicious study about the making of religious identity in a perilous and changing world.”—Mark Valeri, Washington University in St. Louis

“Mining a dazzling array of sources, including those foregrounding ritual and material culture, Juster introduces us to an early American Catholicism that was far more geographically, ethnically, and racially diverse than accounts of a beleaguered Anglo-American minority clustered in Maryland would suggest. This remarkable book will change our understanding of religion in the English colonies.”—Kathleen Sprows Cummings, University of Notre Dame