This diverse collection grows out of a 2008 conference that addressed a familiar theme, namely church establishment in the high noon of European Christendom, but from a fresh and distinctive perspective. Of the eleven essays, four deal with church-state relationships in European metropolitan states, namely France, Germany, and Great Britain. The others, though, examine the dilemmas of establishment in a variety of imperial and colonial settings in the British and Spanish Empires and in one North American case, Virginia. Given the overwhelmingly Australian and/or New Zealand backgrounds of the contributors, it is not surprising that those two nations are particularly well-covered. The overall quality of the essays is excellent, and the editors have done an outstanding job in ensuring consistency of both theme and tone (no mean achievement given the breadth of topics and regions covered).

Repeatedly, the authors see the constraints of the older confessional states being stretched to breaking point in the far less controlled environments of the “neo-Europes.” The book is of great value to European historians, who will observe how traditional church structures adapted to the new settings, where colonists and migrants often demonstrated a surprising nostalgia for the old certainties. At the same time, these case-studies lay a powerful and essential foundation for anyone wishing to understand the emergence of post-colonial churches, which would of course soon dwarf their metropolitan founders. In their thoughtful and erudite introduction, the editors raise important questions about the future relationship between old and new churches.