Alan Sell, formerly of Aberystwyth but now international in his lecturing, has published the 2006 Didsbury Lectures, delivered at the Nazarene College, Manchester, in greatly expanded form. They therefore cover much of the theological output of the older Free Churches, though not the younger. There is no treatment of classic Pentecostalism or the independent charismatic Churches, which is why the last study of the Holy Spirit comes from as long ago as 1947. As the author acknowledges, there is disproportionate representation of Congregationalists, but that is partly because, from P. T. Forsyth onwards, their theological writings tend to have been weightier than those of other traditions. There are successive chapters on main theological trends, on central doctrines, on ecclesiology and on eschatology, the atonement and lesser topics. The author is especially knowledgeable about ecclesiology, on which, for instance, he brings out the stress of the Genevan school of churchmanship on the church meeting as theocracy, not democracy. Readers will find occasional gaps (T. R. Glover's enormously influential Jesus of history is missing), but the overriding impression is of a wide-ranging and judicious survey. This is the best book to use as a work of reference in its field.