Frank Prochaska has made an impressive contribution to late modern British history, and it is in the area of public philanthropy that his presence has been particularly felt. This new book is certainly welcome; it looks rather like a plucky little ship sailing on a vast and deep ocean. The argument is essentially that Christian faith both inspired and fashioned the myriad forms of philanthropy which flourished in the later nineteenth century, and that faithful local voluntarism stepped into the very regions of social life which political agencies dared not approach. This remarkable, bustling civilisation was destroyed in the twentieth century by that dawning Gargantua, state socialism. For the expansion of a welfare state first undermined the legitimacy of these lively Victorian alliances and then inexorably gobbled them up within its own advancing progress. Professionalism eclipsed amateurism; legalism frightened off neighbourliness. All of this, in its turn, fed the decline of religion in every form across society at large. Christianity was challenged, diluted, marginalised, forgotten. What was once fundamental had begun, within only two generations, to look very remote indeed.

The argument is not quite new and it possesses great attractiveness, at least superficially. The problem still comes in the substantiation. Here, Prochaska is perfectly poised to offer a good deal. The book swiftly turns to four realms of charitable life to watch for evidence: schooling, visiting, mothering and nursing. Here the source material is often diverse, and sometimes it is assembled rather loosely. There are brief glimpses of Octavia Hill, Josephine Butler, the Booths and the Barnetts, the earl of Shaftesbury and Williams Beveridge and Temple. The doughty societies are prodded onto the stage in succession – the London Bible and Domestic Female Mission, the Women's Institute, the Church of England Children's Society and the Girls' Friendly Society – and swept off again, rather brusquely. Temperance earns only three passing nods, yet when the Ranyard Mission lingers, there is a sense of gaining solid ground. All this time there is an assembly of other voices to attend: writers like Dickens, Gaskell and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, or philosophical voices like Max Weber, Matthew Arnold and John Stuart Mill. Some belong to other landscapes: Prochaska is particularly fond of de Tocqueville and takes note of Arthur Schlesinger. The book does present an American view, and it is refreshing.

At times the whole approach is very lively and winning; at others the argument tends to be dispersed in generalisations and distractions just when it might become very concrete indeed. At worst this intellectual virtuosity can look suspiciously slick. Some of its impressive efficiency is achieved with striking, provocative sentences which somehow provoke doubts about the enterprise: ‘The Bible, once the “alpha and omega” of instruction, had been consigned to the dustbin of history’ (p. 59); ‘Arguably, chloroform did as much to imperil faith as Darwin’ (p. 142); or ‘What was the point of worshipping in Westminster Abbey when Jesus, now a socialist, had departed for Whitehall?’ This is all splendid stuff, and few are so well qualified to have a go as Frank Prochaska. But is it rhetoric or analysis? Meanwhile, at least some of the juxtapositions between religion and secular life are striking, but crude. After all, many Christians who furnished the old civilisation with its volunteers simply took their place within the new state, putting away the old tracts and parading official qualifications instead. They had not ceased to embody the Christian life in this different landscape. Measuring this remains, of course, exceedingly difficult.

In short, the achievement of the book is, simultaneously, where the difficulties begin. Quite simply, it is far too short, and its brevity forces its distinguished author into an approach which is full of life, but often desperately attenuated and even contrived. One is left to reflect that there is still much to do here.