One avowed aim of this collection of essays is to get away from the traditional Anglocentric approach to the revolutions, still apparent in the official tercentenary celebrations in 1988, which concentrated mainly on England and ignored Ireland altogether. It succeeds in this aim, but with the unfortunate effect of a loss of overall focus. The opening essay discusses the variety of ways in which the Revolution has been analysed and the essays, though of high standard, intensify this centrifugal tendency, with the result that the reader is left with free-standing essays rather than a coherent whole. Only Stephen Taylor's ‘afterword’ attempts (with considerable success) to suggest some sort of overall pattern, based around the concepts of ‘state formation’ (or the acceptance of the ‘fiscal-military state’) and ‘political stability’ (the effective removal of the twin threats of ‘popery and arbitrary government’). It is impossible in a short review to do justice to all of the papers, so I shall focus on those dealing mainly with ecclesiastical and religious history. Perhaps the most interesting is Alasdair Raffe's thoughtful discussion of the failure of episcopacy in Scotland, which leads neatly into Tim Harris on James vii and ii's dealings there. Mark Goldie's elegant analysis of anti-Monmouth sermons in 1685 is a reminder, if one were needed, of how much High Church clergymen hated Dissent, while John Gibney offers an equally salutary reminder of the deep divisions and mutual hatreds of Episcopalian and Presbyterian in Restoration Ireland. Toby Barnard demonstrates at length that, despite the fears of another 1641 in Ireland in 1688–91, it did not happen; Church of Ireland churches were repossessed by Catholics, some clergy were maltreated and Protestant religious books were defaced, but there was little serious violence against Protestants. Faced with such a wide-ranging collection, it may seem unfair to complain of omissions, but (with the exception of Barnard's essay, and Owen Stanwood on the American colonies) there is relatively little on popular politics, either during the revolutions or in the subsequent half-century. A view of Augustan and Georgian politics as confined to Whitehall and Westminster is as archaic as a view of the Revolution as exclusively English – and bloodless. One needs some sense of the ferocity of electoral and street politics, especially in the 1710s, and militant support for High Church Toryism shown not only by the clergy but also by such unenfranchised groups as the Kingswood colliers and the ‘loyal’ mobs which destroyed so many meeting houses in 1715. There are hints of this in Gabriel Gluckman's essay, but more was needed. The Whig oligarchs tried to curb popular involvement in politics, harassing Tory printers and using Whig magistrates, the criminal law and (within limits) the army to curb disaffection, but they never fully succeeded.