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Investigating the roots of Christian women’s culture. Women have frequently been barred from participating fully in theological and ecclesiastical life, notes religious studies scholar Du Mez. They have not been excluded from American consumer culture, though, which has led to their being “less invested in maintaining theological boundaries.” This consumer culture comes in many forms, from dolls to books, cosmetics, and self-help fads. One form is alluded to in Du Mez’s title: In the early 1900s, an Iowa woman, Bessie Anderson Stanley, won a magazine contest on the theme of success: “The person who achieved success, Stanley wrote, was one who ‘has lived well, laughed often, and loved much.’” All these decades later, Du Mez writes, the online retailer Wayfair has more than 56,000 “Live Laugh Love” items for sale. From Erika Kirk’s sequined pantsuits to tradwife TV shows and home-goods emporia like Utah’s Ballerina Farm, from Aimee Semple McPherson to Phyllis Schlafly and Michelle Bachman, women have Christianized politics, commerce, and culture. One notable player, little known these days, was Henrietta Mears, a Zelig-like character whose disciples over the years included the founders of Young Life and the fundamentalist church that private citizen Ronald Reagan attended. Mears convinced Billy Graham to evangelize and crusaded against homosexuality, feminism, and anything short of worship of the free market. Somewhat amusingly, many of these entrepreneurs plagiarized from one another when marketing an endless series of manuals for Christian wives, most of which demanded submission and providing husbands with gratification on demand: “A wife who failed to satisfy a husband’s sexual needs committed the ‘sin of selfishness,’ and the price would be husbands who were ‘carnal, nasty, and insulting.’” With twists such as Amish fiction, the scrapbooking craze, and entrenched Christian nationalism, all this remains very much with us today. A smart, endlessly interesting exercise in connecting cultural dots to learn how we got here. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.