This multi-authored volume provides a very useful summation of the extensive renewal of research and scholarship on the eighteenth-century Church that has occurred in recent decades. Its major contribution is to build on studies of England itself to provide a rounded picture of the wider Anglican world in this, its early formative period.

Following Jeremy Gregory's stimulating introduction which adds two further Es, Enlightenment and Evangelicalism, to the two Es of the subtitle, the main body of the book is divided into three parts. The three chapters of the first section, the work of Grant Tapsell, Robert Ingram and Mark Smith, rise effectively to the challenge of ‘Defining Anglicanism’ across this long and complex period, dividing the task at the watershed dates of 1714 and 1783. Their chronological survey could stand on its own as an excellent short introduction to the period, convincingly refuting ingrained Victorian perceptions of an era of stasis and negligence.

The second section provides an innovative survey of ‘Regional Anglicanisms’. The opening chapter on England by W. M. Jacob, while impressive on its own terms, inevitably duplicates some of the ground already covered in the first part of the book, but the subsequent chapters give the volume a truly global scope. The essays on the other UK nations are especially valuable overviews that correct widespread misconceptions. Paula Yates shows that for much of the eighteenth century Anglicanism was closely integrated into Welsh culture and that the alienation that eventually led to disestablishment should not be predated. Toby Barnard offers a subtle analysis of the challenges faced by the Church of Ireland in its privileged minority situation while Alasdair Raffe ably unpicks the political and ecclesiastical complexities of Scottish Episcopalianism.

James B. Bell's chapter on North America marshals impressively detailed evidence on the distribution and origins of the dispersed Anglican clergy in the region. Here, as in other regions outside the UK, Anglicanism in this period was a fragile presence, initially heavily dependent on support from the SPG and the SPCK and lacking local structures and episcopal oversight. Nevertheless, it mattered: as Natalie A. Zacek puts it in her chapter on the West Indies, although Anglicanism ‘struggled’ it still became ‘a crucial source of identity’. Daniel O'Connor makes a similar point about India: especially after the creation of the diocese of Calcutta in 1813 Anglicanism was on track to become both a focus for imperial loyalty and a genuine, if limited, indigenous presence. Anglican presence in Africa was embryonic in this period, but Elizabeth Elbourne notes the important impact of slavery abolitionism and the origins of later developments in the settlement of Sierra Leone and the conversion in 1825 of the future first African bishop, Samuel Crowther. Only in Australia, in the context of the early convict settlements, was colonial Anglicanism supported by the government from the outset, but here, as Joseph Hardwick shows, this distinctive local form of establishment gave way by the end of the period to a more diverse and voluntaristic presence.

The final section of the book adopts a thematic approach. Here the authors vary in their response to the overall global scope of the volume. B. W. Young is explicit in limiting his chapter to ‘Theology in the Church of England’, while J. C. D. Clark's study of ‘Church, parties and politics’ and Clare Haynes's of ‘Anglicanism and art’ have a comparably constrained geographical scope. Bryan D. Spinks's account of liturgy and worship and Gareth Atkins's of Evangelicalism are, however, more sensitive to the non-English parts of the UK, while the chapters on sermons (William Gibson), music (Nicholas Temperley), architecture (Louis P. Nelson) and Methodism (David R. Wilson) rise to the challenge of representing other continents, especially North America, insofar as their evidence allows. The two remaining chapters, by Tony Claydon on relations with the Churches of Europe and by David Manning on religious societies and missions, of their very nature further extend the scope of the volume beyond the shores of the United Kingdom.

The wide chronological range of the volume that creates a very long ‘eighteenth century’ from 1662 to 1829 is rather less advantageous than its geographical expansiveness. It is welcome insofar as it allows authors to demonstrate significant long-term continuities but at times leaves the unfortunate impression of the later seventeenth century as a prologue and the early nineteenth century as an epilogue. After Grant Tapsell's excellent initial chapter, few of the other contributors offer much comment on the period before 1688 and the chronological centre of gravity of most of their contributions is after 1714. At the other end of the period, present-day historians of the Victorian Church of England will readily acknowledge the extensive evidence marshalled here that refutes the mythology of Hanoverian indolence and documents the significant origins of later ideas and trends. They will be less forgiving of the failure, except in Mark Smith's chapter specifically focused on the period after 1783, fully to explore the impact of the Industrial Revolution, American independence, revolution and war in continental Europe, the political union of Britain and Ireland, the rapid growth of Evangelicalism and Protestant Dissent and competition from resurgent Roman Catholicism, which all combined by 1829 to transform the context and prospects of Anglicanism in the United Kingdom as well as overseas.

There are a few unfortunate errors. For example, the statement (p. 181) that after 1763 ‘Great Britain now controlled the major portion of the hemisphere’ is at odds with the continuing Portuguese and Spanish presence in the Americas. While the non-jurors indeed refused to accept the legitimacy of the 1688–9 settlement, the assertion (p. 259) that William and Mary were not ‘lawful descendants’ of James ii is questionable as Mary was his legitimate daughter. Here too James ii’s infant son is incorrectly identified as ‘Prince Charles’. However, such occasional glitches do not detract from the value of this volume as an authoritative and wide-ranging overview of recent research.