The torrent of companions, dictionaries and encyclopedias shows no sign of abating. It would be a shame if this superior example of the genre were to sink without trace, for it is worthy of the sustained attention of students, scholars in the field and serious enquirers. The brainchild of the late Colin Gunton, the project has been brought to a successful conclusion by David Fergusson.The work falls into two parts: ‘Key thinkers and their influence’ (Kant, Schleiermacher, Hegel, Coleridge, Kierkegaard and Newman) and ‘Trends and movements’ – seventeen chapters encompassing natural science, Romanticism, and Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Liberal and Orthodox theology. The English Channel and the Atlantic Ocean are spanned by content and contributors alike. Among many good chapters, some are outstanding. With the first chapter, on Kant, Nicholas Adams sets a high standard, carefully expounding the ideas, and situating Kant in his intellectual context. Christine Helmer properly bears in mind that as well as being the ‘father of modern theology’, Schleiermacher was ‘a theorist of culture, a sociologist and psychologist of religion, and a philosopher of self-consciousness reaching deep into the philosophy of language’ (p. 34). David R. Law's chapters on Kierkegaard and kenoticism are exemplary; Julia A. Lamm carefully examines the indebtedness of the Romantics to Spinoza; and Bradford E. Hinze offers a comprehensive study of the theology of Roman Catholic Tübingen. James D. Bratt's account of confessional theology in America is a model of compression-cum-lucidity, while Robert W. Jenson adroitly turns the tables on those who would too easily cast Emerson as a Romantic: Kantian content qualified by sentiment and ornamented with Romantic diction is Jenson's diagnosis. Mark D. Chapman is authoritative on the History of Religion School. Writing on ‘Skeptics and anti-theologians’, George Pattison launches a well-aimed torpedo at those who, by equating anti-theology with nihilism, evacuate the former term of its true significance. There is much else besides. Stephen R. Holmes breezily provides the ingredients for grading Coleridge's work, himself finding it good as far as it goes: a patchwork rather than a mosaic of ideas. Matthias Gockel offers a welcome, clear, necessary and all too frequently neglected analysis of terms at the beginning of his chapter on ‘Mediating theology in Germany’. There are a few problems, however. In being allocated ‘Reformed theology in Scotland and the Netherlands’ Graham McFarlane was given an impossible task. A chapter on ‘Reformed theology in Britain’ and another on ‘Reformed theology in continental Europe’ would have eased matters and also accommodated Hungary and Switzerland. In a few of the bibliographies significant recent work is overlooked. Pace p. 158 James Ward did not serve as a Unitarian pastor in Cambridge, but, following a month's trial, was minister (albeit non-ordained) of Emmanuel Congregational Church, Cambridge, from January 1871 to March 1872. On p. 272 the reference is to the Knightbridge Chair of Philosophy at Cambridge; and P. T. Forsyth was contemporary with, not later than, the younger James Denney (p. 368). On p. 400 the person referred to is Priestley, on p. 466 it is Hort, and on p. 481 we should read ‘exerted’ for ‘comprised’. Among many intellectual stimuli is the challenge Pattison throws down to apologists who would counter anti-theologians (p. 430). In lighter vein the unsanctified thought occurred that Ritschl and Harnack would have a hard time in some circles today given their insistence that ‘the Christian concept of God as Father is the true understanding of God’ (p. 476). Jenson contributes the driest remark in the book, remarking on Bushnell's eschewing of speculative Logos theology, ‘Were this possible, it might not be a bad idea’ (p. 356). Kierkegaard wrote, ‘I can compel no man to agree with my opinions, but at least I can compel him to have an opinion’ (p. 113). Only the most inconsistent reader could agree with all the opinions expressed in this important collection, but whereas Kierkegaard hoped that his writings would ‘irritate people into facing the issues’, I predict that this book will challenge readers to the same end. A parting thought: Frank M. Turner reminds us that ‘even as a Roman Catholic Newman never fully satisfied himself as to the exact seat of ecclesiastical authority within that institution’ (p. 122). I confess that as I read those words during the week of the cardinal's beatification, it was difficult to suppress a wry, non-ecumenical, smile.