The Aliites

"Dew's The Aliites: Race and Law in the Religions of Noble Drew Ali is a brilliant book brimming with sharp analysis and abundant compassion. . . . Spencer Dew has written the landmark book on the after-lives of the religious teachings of Noble Drew Ali."-- "Journal of the American Academy of Religion"
"A genuinely original work, The Aliites makes significant contributions to the study of religion, religion's relationship to the law in the United States, and larger themes and patterns among Aliites. Dew's organization of the book around elements of the Great Seal is creative and generative, foregrounding his excellent study of the centrality of the law and practices of citizenship in Aliite thought. This book offers the best interpretation currently available of many practices that contribute to outsiders' evaluations of some of the modern groups as criminal, making it an enormously valuable work."-- "Judith Weisenfeld, Princeton University"
"In this remarkable book of personal and communal atonement, Dew honors what he calls 'the intellectual aikido' of Aliite thinkers across a hundred years of insistent devotion to the ideals of American citizenship. Placing the Aliites in the proud company of American freethinkers, Dew lays before us an alternative tradition of American democracy--of civic engagement as religion--from the founding of utopian communities to the courting of FBI surveillance. The Aliites introduces us to a fecund and vital vernacular legal imagination, one that could only be American."-- "Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, Indiana University Bloomington"