This is part of a series with the stated goals of having major scholars present authoritative syntheses of the current state of their subjects for an audience ranging from scholars to general readers. Articles are to have a historiographical dimension and point the way to future work—all in about fifteen pages. This is a tall order, but the skillful editorial guidance of Robert Tittler and Norman Jones has resulted in essays that hit the target with admirable proximity to the bull's-eye.

It is impossible in a brief review to do justice to twenty-eight essays by twenty-seven authors. While I will report the topics covered, I will primarily assess how well the goals set by the series manifesto are met here. The first of four sections, “Government and Politics,” includes reports on Henry VII's style of kingship, the Tudor state under Henry VIII, the Elizabethan regime, the court, the law, English county government, urban government, “the periphery” (principally Ireland and Wales), Scottish politics and government, Anglo-Scottish relations, and Britain in the wider world. A second section on “Belief” begins with a chapter on traditional religion, followed by the Dissolutions, the religious settlements, Catholics and recusants, Protestant opposition under Elizabeth, and the Scottish Reformation. “People and Groups” offers one chapter on rural world, three on urban life, and one on women. Finally, “Culture” leads off with a discussion of British understandings of their histories, followed by chapters on portraiture, drama, architecture, music, and science.

It is hard to imagine how the editors could have done better selecting their contributors. In some cases, the field is particularly associated with one person and he is the author, such as Daniel Woolf on understandings of the past or Steve Hindle on county government. Even in cases of more crowded fields, the choices are superb. Particularly commendable is that the editors avoided contributors with an ax to grind. All of the essays are balanced and moderate, even when not shy about staking out still-contested territory. Also praiseworthy is the balance between senior and established figures, such as Jenny Wormald writing on Scottish politics, and newer authoritative voices, such as Peter Cunich on the Dissolutions.

One has a right to question a publisher's enthusiastic claims that a reference work will be full of clear and lively writing and that it will serve everyone from specialists to general readers. The editors have certainly done their level best, but there are limits to how lively one can make efforts to compress a large field into fifteen printed pages. No essay fails to be lucid and well-organized, but none can truly be described as lively. Noble attempts at vivid imagery, especially by Peter Iver Kaufman writing on Elizabethan puritans, exist, but mostly this is simply very good reference book writing—and there's no shame in that. Scholars may find little that is new, but wide coverage and inclusion of atypical subjects improve the chances. Some of the essays will probably be more accessible to untrained readers than others. David Grummitt's splendid treatment of Henry VII's kingship is efficient and approachable, opening up past debates and staking out clear positions about the innovative nature of the first Tudor's government; it is a marvelous piece for beginners. Likewise, Ben McRee's introduction to traditional religion is beautifully executed and admirably accessible. Many other essays will be somewhat tougher sledding for students, if for no other reason than they are so packed with information. This is not a reflection on the skills of the authors but on the difficulty of their remit.

As with many recent works, this volume intends to cover the entire British Isles—to which it refers with the unfortunate label of “Tudor Britain.” As Michael Graham tartly points out in the first sentence of his excellent contribution on the Scottish Reformation, Scotland hardly can be considered a Tudor territory! The English bias betrayed by the title is certainly present in the book, but more so in the first section than in the others. The authors of most essays that are not specifically addressing one national experience make a very serious effort to include material on Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. Current scholarship on those areas is often thin compared to what exists for England, but what there is finds a place in these essays and the bibliographies to a commendable extent.

The synthesis within each essay is also remarkably complete given the space constraints. My only quibble is with the uneven way in which historiographical issues are addressed. The essays by Grummitt and McRee, mentioned above, do it superbly, but in many other equally fine chapters, such as Hindle's and Kaufman’s, other historians’ views are rarely noted explicitly, and the uninitiated reader will have little sense of the debates within a field. The problem that I experienced was not, however, the coverage within essays but the overall coverage of the volume. Certainly, the editors are to be commended for what they included that a decade or two ago would never have made it into such a collection. At the same time, there are surprising omissions. Edward and Mary, for example, are almost invisible, and the Pilgrimage of Grace, which continues to provoke scholarly debate, is mentioned only briefly in the context of monastic dissolution. Rebellion, in fact, gets little attention, and what there is is dispersed over several essays. The section on culture has oddly little to say on print culture (beyond historical writing) or decorative and visual arts (other than portraiture). Areas on which exciting scholarship has appeared in the last decade, such as death and funerary commemoration, are not to be found. Thus, students using the bibliography would never know about two of the most interesting books of recent years: Peter Marshall's Beliefs and the Dead in Reformation England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) and David Cressy's Birth, Marriage, and Death: Ritual, Religion, and the Life-Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). This may be unfair criticism. No one volume can possibly include everything; editors have to make choices. Tittler and Jones have no apologies to make. Still, this volume is not one-stop shopping for students or scholars. It does what it does remarkably well, but it is a—and not the—point of entry into major themes in “Tudor Britain.” It is, however, a book well worth having in a library reference collection.