Half a century ago, a so-called ‘cognitive revolution’ took place in the study of psychology, a reaction against behaviourism that was associated with the rise of new disciplines such as computer science and neuroscience. This revolution, which brought the mind back into experimental psychology, had important consequences for other disciplines, including linguistics, philosophy and anthropology but not history, at least not until recently. Today, a few bold scholars such as Daniel Smail are campaigning for what they call ‘neurohistory’, a ‘deep cultural history’ that might offer a new grand narrative of the story of humanity. Since human history goes back for millions of years, these scholars have a point. Whether this point is relevant to historians of the last few centuries is another matter, since the human brain is unlikely to have changed between the age of Socrates, say, and ourselves. Unfortunately, in their attempt to introduce students of the Reformation to students of cognitive psychology, Tribble and Keene do not engage with this problem, and their book splits into two. The first chapter offers an introduction to the concepts of ‘cognitive ecology’, ‘distributed cognition’ and ‘extended mind’ and their uses in memory studies. The rest of the book is concerned with the English Reformation. The authors present their study as a ‘test case for the model of cognitive ecology’, which they wish to ‘apply’ to religion in early modern England. They look in turn at prayer, catechisms, sacred space, print, hymns and education. If the authors had asked new questions about the long Reformation, I would be hailing this book as a breakthrough, but all they offer us is a summary of recent research on topics such as the layout of churches or the oral transmission of ideas. If they drew on cognitive psychology to give new answers to old questions, that too would be admirable, but as far as I can see their use of phrases such as ‘cognitive ecology’ or ‘extended mind’ offers redescriptions, not new interpretations. No value has been added by the use of these technical terms. The best that can be said about this study is that its juxtaposition of religious history and cognitive psychology may stimulate future readers to produce new ideas.