This is an outstanding book. Its core is the author's Edinburgh PhD (2007), supplemented by further research and leavened by reflection and the incorporation of new ideas garnered subsequently. The book aims to explain the main religious arguments that increasingly divided Scottish society in the period from the Restoration to the death of Queen Anne. The primary confessional fault-line was between Presbyterians and Episcopalians, although both camps had their dissenters, the most important being the militant Cameronians, sworn enemies of King Charles ii. There were also small numbers of Roman Catholics and Quakers. By applying the concept of the ‘culture of controversy’ Raffe seeks to demonstrate the variety of ways ‘in which the Scots expressed their disagreements and argued about their collective problems’. In both aims Raffe succeeds admirably, throughout illuminating his arguments with compelling evidence. He explains with exceptional clarity the basis of the Scots' religious disagreements – which spilled over into questions of civil government, the Presbyterians believing that Christ was the head of the Church, and not the king. Raffe reveals the extent to which great numbers of Scots of all ranks engaged with religious issues, at the same time identifying differences from England. Print was less important, as was coffee house discussion, and there was less focus on Edinburgh, the capital; what also mattered was what was happening at local parish, presbytery and synod level. Raffe demonstrates how print was used in the debates, but also the importance of sermons and other oral means of communicating not only reasoned arguments but also polemic, ridicule and other forms of abuse by both sides. Striking too was the degree to which collective violence in support of religious ideals marked much of the period. Crowd disturbances – in which female participation was vital – were ‘an integral part’ of the culture of controversy in the Restoration era, culminating in widespread anti-Catholic riots and ‘rabblings’ (effectively assaults) of Episcopalian ministers which played a key role in the early stages of the Revolution in Scotland. But this is a bold book too. Raffe tackles and successfully challenges in the Scottish context Jurgen Habermas's notion of a developing bourgeois public sphere. But it is on matters empirical that Raffe is at his best, carefully unpacking the changing meaning of terms such as ‘fanatic’ and ‘enthusiast’ that were used early on to discredit opponents of the Restoration regime, and have been off and on since, by commentators and historians who should have known better. This book is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the religious issues that exercised Scots in the half century after 1660 and the ways in which this manifested itself up to the Jacobite Rising of 1715, the last chance for Episcopalianism to become Scotland's national Church.