The grandeur of the historic Wayside Inn exemplifies Denville's glorious past. Denville, the "Hub of Morris County," has retained its small-town atmosphere from its early days as a stop along the stage routes. Iron and good soil attracted the first settlers. Today, its scenic lakes, vibrant downtown, and many festivals attract tens of thousands each year. In Denville, the superb image collection of the Denville Historical Society & Museum provides spectacular views of this charming community. More than two hundred images and informative text about the town and its people fill the pages of this history. Along with the photographs of buildings, landscapes, and locals are images of historical figures, such as George Washington, who passed through on his way to winter quarters at Jockey Hollow, and William Penn, who first surveyed the area in the early 1700s, as well as local legends "Uncle" Jeddy Cooper and Rock Etam.

The bucolic small-town life of Denville in the 1940s would change forever with the outbreak of World War II. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the town mobilized, creating the Denville Local Defense Council, designating air wardens to watch the skies and establishing air raid sirens. Schoolchildren gathered around home radios to learn if there were enough supplies to heat the school, and families learned to live within the confines of a ration book. The Denville Salvage Committee proclaimed "Bomb 'em with Junk!" as it collected waste goods for the war effort. Hundreds of Denville men served valiantly in all theaters of the war, some earning prestigious military accolades and many tragically never returning. Author Peter Zablocki covers the history of World War II Denville, including interviews with members of the town's "Greatest Generation."

Union Hill was called Pigeon Hill by the earliest settlers and "a New Promised Land" by Quakers fleeing religious persecution. Prospectors established iron forges along what is now Den Brook, and the diverse community united to erect a one-room stone schoolhouse in 1816. No longer a religious sanctuary or iron mecca, this southern half of Denville Township is an upscale residential area that, despite great change, maintains many of the old homes and historic sites, including the old schoolhouse, which is being carefully restored today.

This book uses Christian reactions to the Spanish Civil War to analyse the role and importance of Christianity in interwar Britain. This conflict is used as a proxy through which to discuss the status of Christianity in Britain because the Nationalists claimed to be fighting a Holy War against communist-atheism. This representation meant that the conflict was of considerable interest to Christians in Britain. British Christians frequently used the war in Spain to discuss their broader concerns. Many leading Catholics and fascistic Protestants argued that the events in Spain were an exaggerated form of the communist threat to Britain; by contrast, many Protestants used the war to voice their wider criticisms of Catholicism. Catholics responded to these chastisements by reasserting that members of their faith were patriots who resisted communist internationalism and atheism. Christian responses to the war, therefore, increased pre-existing tension between Protestantism and Catholicism. Similarly, Catholicism’s already difficult relationship with Labour was adversely affected by these movements’ reactions to the conflict. Labour’s involvement with the Basque children operations showed that it wanted to maintain relatively harmonious relations with Catholicism, but these efforts were unsuccessful. Ultimately, this study uses British Christian reactions to the Spanish Civil War to indicate that Christianity was actually an important aspect of interwar British society.