In Native Americans and the Christian Right: The Gendered Politics of Unlikely Alliances, Andrea Smith continues the work of theorizing Native American womens’ activism and arguing for the necessity of building progressive political coalitions to advance progressive agendas—interesting reading in the wake of a presidential election predicated on building just such progressive coalitions across right-left party lines. The book, published early in 2008, urges readers to reconsider the role of religion in social movements on both the right and the left. In her research, Smith looks to conservative Evangelical organizing to examine the possibilities for coalition building. Through five case studies arranged as chapters, Smith deploys her own theoretical terms to analyze race and gender in Evangelical and Native political organizing. In one such case study she examines the recent effort of evangelicals at galvanizing support for prison reform and then moves to critique evangelical ideas on race and gender in the same context. The topics Smith addresses are some of the most controversial issues facing Native political activists making this work all the more engaging, debatable, and necessary. – Review by Melissa Olson
