The title of this book is rather misleading since it is not a systematic history but a collection of essays, originally conference papers, on topics ranging from a philosophical meditation on Christianity and modernity to an account of an 1860s Catholic mass political campaign. The book’s contributions concerning the intellectual contours of nineteenth-century Western European liberal Catholicism particularly emphasize the importance of Jansenism. Somewhat less explored are nineteenth-century developments, such as the idea of progress, the doctrines of positivism, or scientific discoveries, and Darwinism. The essays have the least to say about the influence of the Enlightenment.

Several contributions discuss the interaction of Catholic ideas and liberal political doctrines. Particularly insightful are Daniele Guiseppe Palmer’s analysis of Royer-Collard’s opposition to the French anti-blasphemy law of 1825, and Arthur Hérisson’s stand-out piece on the Count de Montalembert’s argument that liberal political institutions, including constitutional guarantees of civil liberties and the division of powers, were necessary for the flourishing of religion in general and Catholicism in particular. There are a few comparative accounts as well: the editor’s consideration of the responses of Burke, Macaulay, and Lord Acton to the French Revolution and Colm O’Siochru’s investigation of Ultramontanism in Great Britain during the first half of the nineteenth century, which makes the intriguing but not entirely convincing argument that liberal Catholicism was actually an offshoot of Ultramontanism.

The book’s Western Europe is England and France (along with two essays on Spain that go off in different directions); the Low Countries, Switzerland, Italy, and Western Germany receive at best glancing mentions. Unfortunately, a number of the essays by Francophone authors have been rendered in English which ranges from not idiomatic to not comprehensible. This is a regrettable weakness in an otherwise interesting and stimulating work.