In our time, “a secular age” narrative has marked the English-speaking world. By contrast, the nineteenth century was an age of enormous religious dynamism. In editing the third volume of the Oxford History of Protestant Dissenting Traditions series, Timothy Larsen and Michael Ledger-Lomas have assembled a fine roster of, mainly, historians of Protestant Dissent. The story here begins in the United Kingdom and then moves beyond to the British Empire and the United States. While seventeenth-century Dissent was defined legally by its relationship to the state; by 1900, there were more Dissenters outside of the kingdom than within. Furthermore, these “Dissenters” resided in localities with drastically different church-state relations. Within the first half of the century, the majority of Dissident grievances, exclusions, and restrictions had fallen away in Britain. As Eugenio Biagini notes, at the end of the century, most of the brightest British Liberal politicians were in fact Dissenters (416–17).

While a Dissenting Unitarian and Quaker fringe is covered in the volume, the focus is on an evangelical Presbyterian, Congregational, Baptist, and Methodist mainstream that, by the nineteenth century, was a powerful, and in places, even a dominant cultural force. Larsen points out that Charles Spurgeon, a London Baptist minister, preached each Sunday to more than five thousand, saw fourteen thousand baptized and join his church, while a hundred million copies of his sermons were printed and also translated into twenty-three languages (58). Voluntary societies were a feature of Dissent and arguably were a key influence in the abolition of slavery. Luke E. Harlow reminds the reader that these societies were the influence behind a temperance movement that brought about a sharp reduction in the consumption of alcohol and even succeeded in banning consumption outright in multiple political jurisdictions (430–37). The universal suffrage movement was in many localities an analogue of temperance reform and everywhere championed by a Dissent that verged on the hegemonic in Biagini's estimation (408–9).

Public elementary education was trumpeted by Dissent and could even be shaped by an individual, such as the Methodist minister, Egerton Ryerson, in Upper Canada. A vast web of institutions was spun which in their day were full of ministerial trainees, even if today they have been absorbed by universities or on occasion converted to a stately youth hostel. Women in preaching and leadership roles were not an uncommon feature of early Methodism, though their influence had declined by mid-century. However, as noted by Janice Holmes (136–37) and David Kling (201–3), women remained key participants in the movement and once again began the ascent to leadership in progressive Methodist circles by century end.

While Dissent was characterized by a questioning of authority, distinctive traditions of worship and piety were nonetheless essential. The mainstream of the movement remained conversionist, emphasized religious experience, Bible reading, hymn singing, and preaching. D. Densil Morgan highlights the emphasis on preaching, usually of a conversionist style, throughout the period with large urban churches designed around “princes of the pulpit” (505–12). A common theme throughout the essays is the amount of flux in denominational distinctions these groups experienced during the century. For example, at times both Quakers and Unitarians experienced undercurrents of biblicism and orthodoxy, even if a progressive spirit reigned by century end. This phenomenon is brought out in the essays by Thomas Kennedy (81–91), Stephen Shoemaker (273–74), and Ledger-Lomas (110–111). Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians, of course, experienced full-scale splits over differences in practice and doctrine.

Judging by the number of my own marginal notations, my thinking was most stimulated in new directions by the essays of Andrew Holmes (evangelism, revivals, and foreign missions), Biagini (politics and social reform), and by S. C. Williams (gender). On the negative side of the ledger, I was disappointed with the haphazard way that demographic data is presented. For example, the growth of Methodism exploded in the United States between the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, with numbers increasing from 1,000 members in 1775 to 250,000 in 1820 as documented by Jay Case (212). Similarly, the number of Baptists in England and Wales circa 1750 was under 20,000, but by 1851 were more than 500,000. At minimum, a comparative table listing numbers by time period, denomination, and region would be helpful.

Additional questions remain unanswered: Did not Anglican evangelicalism function as a de facto and sizeable movement of “dissent” within the Church of England throughout the nineteenth century with numbers that exceeded smaller conventional Dissenting groups? Was Methodism as solidly “middle class” as commonly assumed given the preponderance of women and children in attendance at church or Sunday school in urban areas or the phenomena of massive numbers of African Americans joining the movement? Given that behavioral protocols were increasingly a reality for Dissenting males, regardless how strictly one views the “separate spheres” thesis, do these protocols coordinate with the declining rates of interpersonal violence in England that Manuel Eisner and others have found during the period under study?

Finally, if Dissenting males exhibited a propensity to be captured in a census with skilled and artisanal designations, was this a result of being situated in better networks or was there a self-selection process happening? Janice Holmes suggests that, in the Methodist context, the emphasis on personal and social holiness gave individuals the “tools” needed to “manage social well-being” and hence Methodism was successful “because it advocated a positive approach toward personal and social change” (135). Much hinges on this class question, including the question of whether or not Dissent played a key role in the economic growth in which it was heavily represented. This volume provides many fresh angles of vision and its editors are to be commended.