Roots and Shoots: Theosophy in the United States

Dorothy Bell's Roots and Shoots: Theosophy in the United States, published by the Theosophical Society in America itself, is an institutional self account, not independent scholarly history. Its strength is that it comes from inside the movement it describes and can draw on institutional memory an outside historian might not have access to. Its limit is real and should be weighed directly: the Theosophical Society has its own interest in how its American history is told, so its own published account is not a neutral one and should be read alongside independent historical scholarship on the movement.