Hilary Carey's wide-ranging study of colonial religion makes her something of a scholarly pioneer. As she rightly notes, the “colonial” missions of British Christian churches to fellow countrymen who settled abroad have long been neglected by historians preoccupied with the quite distinct movement of “foreign” missions to non-Christians and the racial oppression associated with them. Yet, as this book meticulously documents, missions to emigrants comprised a large movement, in which all churches, established and non-conformist, catholic and evangelical, took part. In so doing, as Carey argues, “they played an important role in shaping the cultural and religious identity of greater Britain” (83).

The case for this book's existence is therefore well made, and the author's approach to her subject is a more or less sound one. So vast and varied a movement could only, perhaps, be examined in the round on a denomination by denomination basis, as here. The reader is therefore presented with two central narrative sections on colonial mission societies and colonial clerical training, each chaptered according to church. These are bookended by two sections of a more discursive nature, the first providing an historiographical and definitional grounding for what follows, the last bringing fresh perspectives to the idea of “Christian colonization” as it played out in both the Antipodes and North America.

The relative lack of prior scholarly studies of the colonial missionary movement—although the field is awash with hagiographical “histories” produced by the individual societies themselves—meant that a considerable feat of research was required from the author. As well as archival sources, Carey has made excellent use of what is clearly an enormous body of printed primary material, with her analysis of missionary memoirs in the concluding chapter being particularly fine; indeed it might usefully have been expanded upon earlier in the text.

It is a pity, however, that having exploited this printed material, the bibliography fails adequately to record and highlight the fact. Given its importance, a separation of printed primary and printed secondary sources was surely warranted in this instance. Meanwhile, a referral to a website hosting a general list of missionary periodicals is all very well, but considering the pathbreaking nature of the book, it would surely serve future researchers better to have provided a list of the specific titles consulted. One suspects, however, that publishing constraints are to blame for these lapses.

It seems churlish to criticize so source-rich an endeavour for its few lacunae, but they are worth pointing out. Having singled out the Dublin-based Catholic Missionary College of All Hallows for its own chapter, it seems odd that better use has not been made of the voluminous correspondence sent from the colonies to the college by its alumni and client bishops, a good proportion of which is available for consultation on microfilm in the National Library of Ireland. The section on the Colonial Mission of the Irish Presbyterian Church, moreover, could have been improved by looking beyond the meager reporting of its activities in the Minutes of the General Assembly to regular and detailed reports in the Church's Missionary Herald—a publication now commercially digitized alongside other important “empire”-themed periodicals. Regardless, Carey's central inclusion of Irish churches in the narrative is to her credit.

Indeed, the broad scope of the book is what impresses most. This is a topic that requires engagement with several adjacent (and vast) historiographies, but is in itself a foray into virgin territory: the temptation to place further limits on the venture must have been hard to resist, and we can be thankful that it was resisted.

There is however, one slightly frustrating aspect of the multi-denominational approach. It is not, strictly speaking, a fully comparative study, nor could one reasonably expect it to be. Nevertheless, the author dangles a number of intriguing comparative questions before us. For example, the idea that Scottish Presbyterian emigrants favored ministers from Scotland is highlighted. (219) Is the reader therefore to assume that this differs from the preferences of, say, English Methodists or Irish Catholics? More explicitly, Carey asserts that Irish Presbyterians linked their colonial missionary work to secular imperialism to a far greater extent than their Scottish brethren did (229–30). That has potentially important implications, and it would be interesting to know why it was apparently the case.

These are, however, minor quibbles. On the whole, Professor Carey has conducted a worthwhile study of a neglected topic, producing a well written text enlivened by occasional flashes of wit, and skillfully mapping the contours of a field that is likely to attract further scholarship in years to come.

A couple of minor factual errors ought finally to be noted: Tobias Kirby succeeded to the rectorship of the Irish College Rome in 1850, not 1870 (143) and the Protestant Colonization Society, somewhat belying its name, aimed to prevent rather than encourage emigration—it advocated “home colonization” (330).