This reprint of Timothy Larsen's extremely well-received 1999 study is most welcome. A sure guide to issues of religious equality between 1847 and 1867, Larsen is not frightened of questioning received historiography, regardless of the status of those he criticises, especially when using mistaken or anachronistic stereotypes of mid-century nonconformity. Dissent's coherent world-view was formulated out of a particular theological understanding, which impelled its voluntarist convictions and campaigns for religious equality. Sense cannot be made of the history Larsen analyses without taking theology seriously: only so can these men and movements be properly understood. Proper distinctions must be made, distinguishing the specifically nonconformist approach from the evangelical and the Protestant [anti-catholic]. ‘Nonconformist politics was rooted theology, but not in the soteriology of Evangelicalism, but rather in the ecclesiology of Congregationalism.’ The traditional agenda of nonconformist grievances, here comprehensively considered, leads Larsen to differentiate situations with practical consequences from those of simply iconographic significance, that is of limited day-to-day impact, but which were perceived to be demeaning to nonconformists. Manipulated by the hard core of militant dissent to advance its more radical demands for disestablishment, the question arises whether government's failure to resolve such issues radicalised dissenting aspirations. The disestablishment case, based on the primacy of Christ as the head of the Church, also raised the distinction between a ‘gathered’ and a national Church, faith-commitment not geography determining its character. The campaign consumed much energy to little effect, at least in England, though successful in Ireland and later in Wales. Failure here curbed efforts to secure full religious equality, though the consistency of nonconformist attitudes is seen in their espousal of Roman Catholic and Jewish rights in Britain, and Hindu rights in India. In an age of laissez-faire, the interests of a free state and the Free Churches increasingly converged, but confronted by the problems of a new mass urban industrial society, the forces of voluntarism proved inadequate, leading to new confidence in the state, and its ability to intervene effectively for the good of the mass of the population. Here, education had priority, with the mid-century dissenting conscience, which championed voluntarism, giving way to recognition of the need for a state-wide system of non-sectarian education. The law as a mechanism for moral reform followed hard upon such considerations with the temperance lobby seeking prohibition in various forms. Finally, the peace conscience is related to issues of national identity, noting in particular how the Crimean War caused many dissenting leaders to revise earlier judgements. Such causes did not secularise dissent; rather radical theologising led them into agonisingly difficult decision-making. Political dissent and evangelical dissent were not separate phenomena: more precisely they represented responses to different needs; nonconformists were as much concerned about the proper duties of government as the proper responsibilities of the Church.