"Manca's original insights about seeing beauty in the context of a simple life make Shaker Vision a useful complement . it is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in the visual culture of the valley of love and delight."-- New England Quarterly "Drawing from Shaker household journals, travelogues, letters, laws, visions, hymns, and apostate writings, penned by women and men, and representing many of the communities extant in the early to mid-nineteenth century, Manca shows us how Shakers saw themselves and the world around them . [This is] an impressive and useful study of early Shaker vision."-- Winterthur Portfolio "An engaging account of the place and function of beauty in the life and experience of the early Shaker community."-- Stephen J. Stein , author of The Shaker Experience in America: A History of the United Society of Believers "This meticulously researched and masterfully documented study of early Shaker attitudes toward beauty will appeal to anyone interested in Shaker culture and history."-- Kathryn Reklis , author of Theology and the Kinesthetic Imagination: Jonathan Edwards and the Making of Modernity.