The heady mixture of religion, politics, the economy and social ambition is the subject of this well-researched and detailed study that looks at a part of England that, although not at the forefront of the Reformation, has attracted quite a bit of interest from historians in recent years. It is to Lowe's credit therefore that he focuses on an aspect that remains tantalisingly difficult to get to grips with – the extent to which socio-economic circumstances and increasing political sophistication made the message of religious change appealing to the civic elite. To tackle this question, the author traces the growing power wielded by Gloucester's leaders from the granting of the city charter in 1483 to the early years of the Elizabethan era, arguing that by the mid-sixteenth century Protestant theology was resonating with socio-economic endeavour around the idea, and ideal, of ‘commonwealth’. He sensibly and very competently spends the first two chapters building a picture of growing antagonism to the abbey fuelled by increasing civic pride and influence, citing examples such as the support given by the Common Council to local people rather than the abbey when rioting broke out in 1535, and lay leaders who put some of the wealth that they obtained from the abbey's dissolution into promoting the good of the community through the foundation of local hospitals, schools and almshouses. Several times he argues that if civic officials were greedy for wealth and power, their ambition was tempered by magnanimity and charity. To support his theme, he has mined an impressive array of local records and archives to track the increasing economic and political influence of the local elite, both as individuals and as familial and social groupings (although the latter, and especially the development of different networks, could be more fully explored). It is in this portrayal of civic society that the author's research and attention to detail are most clearly demonstrated. Where the book fails to convince is in the argument that charitable giving is indicative of commonwealth ideas. At the very least, the reader would be more persuaded by an earlier discussion on the concept of commonwealth in the Tudor period; it is not given until pp. 200–9. There are also times when the author appears a little too determined to show that the development of the commonwealth ideal was largely the concern of those leaders in sympathy with the new religion; individuals are too readily labelled ‘Protestant’ and ‘Lutheran’ to prove the point. Finally, some comparison with other cities would have been valuable, particularly in the chapter on John Hooper, whose relationships with the lay elite in Worcester were so different from the ones that he had in Gloucester. These points apart, the book offers a usefully different perspective on a city whose Reformation history is becoming increasingly familiar; which, according to the author, is what he set out to achieve.