Rational Dissenters is a densely packed research monograph focusing on the identity formation of ‘rational dissenters’ during the last three decades of the eighteenth century. Valerie Smith is concerned to recover the theological opinions and activities of the rank and file of Rational Dissent. In pursuit of this, she adopts a prosopographical approach including many figures hitherto little discussed and thus provides a ‘significantly larger survey of Rational Dissenting opinion’ (p. 212) than arguably exists in current scholarship. Inspired by Alan Sell's notion of ‘hinterland theology’, Smith seeks to take discussion of Rational Dissent beyond interpretations framed by study of its leading figures, Richard Price and Joseph Priestley. It is the study of the lesser-known figures that allows for an ‘analysis of the social, geographical and intellectual appeal of rational dissent among its less visible sympathisers, notably women, laymen, and ministers who sustained it at a local level’ (p. 3). The result is an informative and well-constructed study.

In her wide-ranging accumulation of published and unpublished sources, explained in chapter i and set out in detail in three appendices, Smith's goal is to cover as much as possible the underheard voices of Rational Dissent, especially of laymen and women. The second chapter analyses the role of external attack on identity formation amongst Rational Dissenters. Emotive yet largely uncomprehending assaults on the theological and political beliefs of Rational Dissent, growing shriller in the contexts of the American then French Revolutions, prompted response. Rational Dissent was refined as a body of opinion against often scurrilous attack, with increasingly precise assertions of Rational Dissenters’ ‘Christian, scriptural, and rational identity’ (p. 50). The theological character of Rational Dissent's collective identity is developed in the third chapter, with Smith drawing out the differences between Rational and Orthodox Dissenters, how the former's theological beliefs informed their worshipful practices and wider lives, and the growing solidity of Rational Dissenting networks and organisations. Chapter iv, however, shows how Rational Dissent's ‘strong rejection of the imposition of dogma’ encouraged a great degree of diversity of theological opinion, far greater than current historiography acknowledges (p. 77).

Chapters v and vi set out Smith's claim that the political beliefs of Rational Dissenters were the ‘direct outcome of their specific theological identity’, pushing against the secular characterisations found in some (admittedly outdated) scholarship (p. 98). Particularly interesting is the sixth chapter, where Smith explores how Rational Dissenters defended themselves from accusations of subversiveness by positioning themselves publicly as loyal subjects to king and parliament and as patriotic seekers of reform in ‘strictly constitutional’ ways (p. 120). The final three chapters survey the evolution of Rational Dissenting identity from the 1770s through to the early nineteenth century. Examinations of various publication projects, academies and societies suggest that laypeople were as interested in theological matters as ministers, and that the Unitarian message reached skilled tradespeople. That said, the very character of Rational Dissent ‘rendered the extension of its message to the poor and unlettered a difficult task’ (p. 173). Unitarianism continued to formalise into a denomination, though this was in continual tension with the enduring emphasis on individual interpretation of Scripture. Similarly, the divergence between Unitarian and Arian continued apace, such that by the early nineteenth century the term ‘Rational Dissent’ had fallen out of usage, while Arianism was ‘disappearing from public view, overshadowed by Unitarian publications and organisations’ (p. 207).

Overall, Smith emphasises the need to get beyond the focus on the luminaries of Rational Dissent, Price and Priestley, to make an assessment of its general character. This leads to greater coverage of lay and female Rational Dissenters, and a sense that while ‘the evolution of theological ideas amongst Rational Dissenters stemmed principally from small intellectual elites, its appeal extended beyond this to skilled craftsmen, manufacturers and merchants’ (pp. 215–16). Rational Dissenters were unified by being subject to ‘vehemently hostile perceptions’ yet at the same time there was space for ‘individual diversity in the details of doctrine and practice’ (p. 15). Certain core beliefs on liberty of conscience, universal toleration and patriotism were universally held, but the ‘key conclusion’ of Smith's study was the ‘overwhelmingly theological nature’ of Rational Dissent, in contrast with the ‘secular focus’ of much current scholarship (p. 210). The identity of Rational Dissent was constructed through response to uncomprehending hostility; Smith views her subject as a case study, of wider significance, in the identity formation of a minority group subject to majority criticism.

Rational Dissenters emerges out of Valerie Smith's PhD dissertation, which she undertook in later life. Sadly, she died before the project was completed, and the book was ushered through the press by her brother David Hopkins and G. M. Ditchfield. The circumstances of the book's publication explain a few unpolished elements and it seems churlish to criticise these. One larger issue which might be observed – which Smith was alert to – is that reliance upon Eighteenth Century Collections Online forces researchers into the arbitrary end point of 1800, with no comparable database of digitised nineteenth-century books. This can lead to imbalances of interpretations. But we should be glad that we have gained a thorough study, based on much painstaking archival and statistical research, that contributes something significant to our understanding of Rational Dissent.