The University of Chicago Press launched the Chicago History of American Religion series in 1973 under the editorship of Martin E. Marty. Renewed under the editorial direction of John Corrigan, the series built on the strengths of its earlier classic works—concise, chronologically expansive, groundbreaking overviews of specific areas of American religious history. Books in the series combined synthesis with a critical and original viewpoint that demonstrated the importance of the topic with reference to lives and events, and to the ways the topic challenged, reinforced, or altered master narratives of American religious history.