Scholars have generally understood Wesleyan Methodism as only one slice of early British evangelicalism (albeit the most persistent and institutionally successful). They certainly have not ignored the evangelical party of the Anglican Church, evangelical Dissenters, Moravians, Calvinist Methodists, and the various freelance groups such the “Inghamites” and others. However, most tend to place these groups on the fringes of the larger Wesley-centric narrative. The subjects of the book under review—the “elect Methodists” of England and Wales (the above named Calvinists) present perhaps the best example of important but under-appreciated elements during this period. Even well-studied significant figures such as Griffith Jones, Howel Harris, Daniel Rowland, and the Countess of Huntingdon are usually cast in minor roles, interesting only to the extent that they supported or competed with the Wesleys' Methodism. And George Whitefield, an undoubted star in transatlantic revivalism, including its Wesleyan branch, at least in the British context is often caricatured as the flamboyant preacher whose dramatic gestures and vast itinerancies precluded local and long term organizing or as the dissonant Calvinist irritant to his former mentor.

The Elect Methodists goes a long way toward correcting this imbalance by analyzing the fascinating parallels, overlappings, and contrasts of these two Reformed examples of British revivalism. These English and Welsh sub-movements, of course, shared several features. In terms of doctrine, they both professed a moderate Calvinist theology, though some found the temptation of double predestination hard to resist as a banner against the Wesleys' Arminianism. In terms of practice, they both were shaping a pre-denominational polity—each of the “elect” communities had to deal with tensions resulting from a loyalty to the established Church, the tug of Dissent, and an urge to provide an alternative preaching, pastoral and, in some cases, sacramental ministry to the Revival's converts. (In this, their experience was not so different from that of the Wesleyans.) There was also considerable cooperation in the use of personnel and other resources. Early on, the “elect” Methodists in England and Wales made common cause. English leaders like Whitefield and Lady Huntingdon established chapels and a college in Wales, and Harris spent a significant time and energy early in his career substituting for Whitefield when the Grand Itinerant vacated his London Tabernacle on one of his American trips. For a while Rowland, Harris, and Whitefield also collaborated in a joint administrative venture, the Association of English and Welsh Calvinistic Methodism. Finally, not only did Lady Huntingdon establish her theological college in Wales, but also she imported a number of Welsh preachers to staff her English chapels.

But there were also differences. The English “branch” ultimately broke apart. The most obvious issue was the lack of an organizational framework. Instead, they depended too heavily on Whitefield's charismatic presence, not always available in England and Wales due to his frequent ramblings and his relatively early demise. In the case of the Countess of Huntingdon, social status and financial dominance and the accompanying autocratic governing style all diminished a successful institutionalization of a popular revival movement. In contrast, in Wales a close connection with the principality's language and culture helped insure the movement's considerable success.

The authors are all members of the history faculty at Aberystwyth University (one of them retired); all familiar with a trove of heretofore unexploited archival material (Welsh primary sources and Whitefield's papers, for instance); and all well published. From their close reading of these documents and their easy familiarity with the secondary material they have constructed a more thorough and nuanced narrative. Four initial chapters trace the origins, development and consolidation of the movement from 1735, concluding with the growing tensions within it. Not only did the Wesleys and Whitefield split in the early 1740s, but by 1750 the Calvinist Methodists suffered internal problems as well: the itinerating Whitefield withdrew from the daily leadership of his Moorfields Tabernacle, and Howel Harris was drummed out of the Welsh Methodists for both theological and behavioral irregularities. Chapters 5 through 7 recount the fortunes of the Welsh and English “elect,” from the mid-century institutional “ebbing and flowing” (117) to the following couple of decades when a second revival reawakened their cause in Wales, while in England “a disparate cast of would-be leaders”(151) set the stage for institutional failure. The final three chapters focus on the Countess of Huntingdon's dramatic but not always helpful exploits, the growing success of the work in Wales under a new generation of leaders (culminating in its emergence as a separate denomination in 1811), and the final break-up of Calvinist Methodism in England.

The authors, writing as a team, not as individuals, have produced a model example of traditional ecclesiastical history, both gracefully accomplished and a fine contribution to the discussion of eighteenth-century evangelicalism. One hopes that their carefully crafted study of key movement insiders is just the beginning. One good future direction might be an analysis of Calvinistic Methodism in the wider cultural contexts, examining its interplay with class, gender, ethnicity, demographic mobility, and maybe even religion's role in Wales's colonial (or post-colonial) struggles—and in England's imperial world view.

Nine glossy portraits help the reader visualize the movements' major figures, and three appendices list Whitefield's societies and preaching places in 1747 along with Lady Huntingdon's up to 1800. A helpful additional feature would have been a simple outline map of the traditional Welsh and English shires, locating significant places in the story (Trefeca and Llangeitho, for instance, and Whitefield's and Lady Huntingdon's major tabernacles and chapels).

In the annual “Bibliography of Methodist Historical Literature—1996” (Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society, vol. 59, no. 2 [May 1997]) only a handful of the 237 titles listed are clearly dealing with either Welsh or Calvinist subject matter. The good news is that The Elect Methodists is one of them (item No. 231), and because of it, Calvinistic Methodism will be better represented both in Methodist bibliography and in a richer academic conversation.