David Stowe is a historian who understands the power of music to reach the human soul. Adding tools from ethnomusicology, anthropology, folklore studies, and hymnology to his own historiographical tool-kit, he offers convincing, humane, often eloquent accounts of the global give-and-take in which sacred song in America has for centuries been engaged.

David Stowe is a historian who understands the power of music to reach the human soul. Adding tools from ethnomusicology, anthropology, folklore studies, and hymnology to his own historiographical tool-kit, he offers convincing, humane, often eloquent accounts of the global give-and-take in which sacred song in America has for centuries been engaged.
— Richard Crawford, author of America's Musical Life: A History

Historians (at very long last) have awoken to the centrality of song in the formation, practices, transmission, and changes over time of modern religious movements. David Stowe's major contribution to this awakening is notable for both its breadth and its depth. His treatments of Buddhists and Baptists, Jews and black Protestants, the main lines and the margins offer the best sort of sympathetic exposition with the most judicious of historical explanations. With Stephen Marini, Stowe has become the leader in opening up a subject whose importance cannot be exaggerated.
— Mark A. Noll, author of America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln

How Sweet the Sound limns the harmonies of religion, hymns, and American culture through an amazing musical and historical panorama. Stowe's stunning exploration of European, Indian, African, and Asian interchanges underscores music's centrality to American spiritual expression and might well inspire readers to break into song themselves.
— Jon Butler, author of Becoming America: The Revolution Before 1776