Doctoral theses are difficult to transform into successful monographs; the move from academic exercise to developed scholarly study is not easily achieved. Undoubtedly Andrew Starkie makes a useful contribution to our understanding of the Bangorian controversy through his discussions of the religious implications of the Whig split of 1716–20, the material culture of the controversy, the language used and the nature of piety during the period. His mind maps of the controversy in the appendices also provide a practical and useful diagrammatic overview of the various strands of contributions to the debate. But there are three principal problems with this study, perhaps arising from its origins. First, by adopting a narrow focus on the Bangorian controversy and largely disengaging it from the earlier Convocation, Sacheverell and Non-juror debates on the nature of authority in Church and State, Starkie does not sufficiently contextualise the controversy and this results in an unbalanced quality to the discussion. Second, by adopting an overly tight thematic structure, the book becomes repetitive because it needs to switch back and forth. Thus the circumstances of the preaching of Hoadly's Bangorian sermon are repeated on pp. 3, 28 and 77; A. A. Sykes's precursor sermon is covered on pp. 28 and 79; Hoadly's ‘harbouring’ of Pillonnière on pp. 5, 71 and 121; the supposed insertion of different words in the printed sermon on pp. 92, 121 and 148, and the same quotation is even repeated on pp. 54 and 78. The third, and principal, flaw in the book is the author's unleavened dogmatic position. Suspicions might be aroused by the choice of a portrait of Andrew Snape for the frontispiece and confirmed by the dismissal of Norman Sykes's work as ‘somewhat worthy’ (p. 13). Thereafter the interpretation is relentlessly antagonistic towards Hoadly: he was ‘rude’ (p. 50), he ‘goaded’ opponents (p. 91), his sermon was ‘notorious’ (p. 132), he was Machiavellian (p. 134), guilty of ‘justified lying’ (p. 135) and ‘destructive of scripture’ (p. 140). Starkie repeats, more than once, the allegation that Hoadly ‘harboured’ a Jesuit in his household, taking six pages to recite the Pillonnière cul de sac during the Bangorian controversy, even implausibly ascribing Hoadly's radicalism to the ex-Jesuit. The author's overall objective is to show that Hoadly was ‘more heterodox and more marginal’ to the controversy than hitherto thought (p. 189), and this leads him into tendentious territory, if not distortion. Consequently Starkie denies Hoadly's commitment to religious toleration (p. 182) and asserts that he had no ‘desire for heaven’ (p. 172). Starkie also treats orthodoxy and heterodoxy as hard and fast distinctions rather than the more permeable categories of prevailing interpretations. One suspects that if the author had the courage of his convictions he would admit to sharing the views of Hoadly held by his opponents in the Bangorian controversy. This is a pity because Starkie has some noteworthy views on the nature of early eighteenth-century discourse, piety and ecclesiology, but they are obscured by the foliage of a dogmatic authorial voice.