This is a carefully researched and superbly written contribution to our understanding of the phenomena of Philosemitism and Christian Zionism in the English-speaking world. It builds on previous work by scores of scholars but offers new and penetrating insights into the ways British Protestants conceived of the Jews and of their role in the unfolding of British history.

Crome demonstrates how Christian Zionism employed Jews and Judaism in the creating and shaping of a British national identity in the period from 1600 to 1850. This constitutes an interesting case of “othering,” although it is a positive “othering.”

Crome articulates five theses. First, that while Protestant England believed that it had been chosen by God as “an elect nation,” it held that England's mission was inferior to that of Israel's, which always remained the only truly “elect” nation. They developed a type of national identity that “employed a form of othering in which identity developed by comparison to an outside group” (3)—namely, the Jews. Second, England's responsibilities toward Israel involved both mission and covenant—the former required political action to restore the Jews to Palestine; the latter was eschatological. Britain had to play its designated role in the consummation of all things. Third, Britain stood under divine judgment for its medieval history of anti-Semitism but could avert this by repentance manifested in favorable treatment of contemporary Jews. Fourth, anxiety arose over Britain potentially failing to fulfill its prophetic role and this fueled the impetus to political action. Fifth, Jews provided Protestants with both a mission to fulfill and a legitimation of British national identity. The continuance of the Jews as a nation and their restoration to Zion would vindicate God's promise and demonstrate his ability to turn England from apostasy.

Crome's approach is to review the emergence of the idea of Jewish restoration in seventeenth-century England, following a trail familiar to historians (chapter 2). He moves on to examine four important events in the development of this professedly Philosemitic Christian Zionism. Chapter 3 discusses the deliberations surrounding the Whitehall Conference on Jewish readmission to England in 1655. Chapter 4 looks at the “Jew Bill Controversy” of 1755 and details the various ways in which Judeo-centrism played a key role in the most important debate of the midcentury as to what constituted Englishness which “shows the continued strength of Judeo-centrism as a tool of identity construction” (161) These debates reinforced all five points that Crome identified in his introduction.

Chapter five examines the continued apocalyptic speculation (both popular and scholarly) that occurred in England between the 1750s and its reemergence at the center of the national stage with the National Crisis of 1793–1795. He focuses his attention on the eccentric, Richard Brothers, who claimed to be the “Prince of the Hebrews” whose significance is to be found in the debate he generated around the definition of Englishness and restorationism.

Chapter 6 explores the shifts in English prophetic thinking in the first half of the nineteenth century and argues that these changes help to account for the establishment of the Jerusalem Bishopric in 1841. He discusses how Napoleon's involvement early in the century in the Middle East played a role in drawing the British into the area and thereby inflamed prophetic speculation, and he evaluates (and problematizes) charges that Judeo-centrism was a means of masking imperial concerns. Evangelical missionary interest in Jewish conversion also stoked the fires of restorationism. Crome skillfully tracks the complex differences between the dominant postmillennialism and its gradual displacement by two quite different forms of premillenialism: initially by historicist premillenialism—which was strongly reformist, socially engaged and supportive of church establishments and embraced an emphasis on national distinctives—and later by dispensational (futurist) premillennialism—which only became important in Britain and America much later in the century.

Another critical shift in prophetic views in this period was the belief that the Jews would return to Palestine before, rather than after, their anticipated conversion to Christianity, moving the return from the long distance, to the middle distance. Now things could be done to enable the return to occur without waiting for the Jews to convert. Britain should employ its imperial power to accomplish this end, knowing that it was serving the elect—and ultimately the superior—nation which would eventually surpass Britain in its greatness once it was established in Palestine. Many of the historicist premillennialists emphasized the continued existence of a distinct Jewish nation even into the anticipated millennium and perhaps even beyond. By helping the Jews here and now, England could atone for its past mistreatment of them and express Protestant gratitude for the Jews’ role in bringing salvation.

The practical outcomes of these shifts had profound effects on foreign involvement in Palestine. The appointment of a British vice-consul to Jerusalem in 1838 was the domino that tripped others and created a rush by nations to follow the British lead. This was followed in 1841 by the creation of a joint English Anglican/German Lutheran bishopric in Jerusalem. Both of these events were indebted to the efforts of restorationists, principally Lord Ashley (later Lord Shaftesbury) on the British side (in the cases of the vice-consul and the bishopric), and Baron Bunsen on the Prussian (in the case of the bishopric). Crome contends that Judaic-centrism was far more mainstream in British society than some historians have allowed and that the support for the creation of the bishopric demonstrates this.

Overall Crome's work is enormously helpful in advancing our understanding of how Christian Zionism influenced the evolution of English national identity. Given that similar dynamics have been at work in America since the colonial period, and are now observable in Latin and South American, as well among some African nations, Crome's study is invaluable as a model for tracking Christian Zionism's impact on national identities.