Ronald Carden describes in detail the life and career of William Brown, the only bishop in the Protestant Episcopal Church ever to have been deposed for heresy. Although bishop of Arkansas from 1898 to 1911, the always vainglorious Brown continued to indulge his ambitions. In a succession of books he argued for the complete racial separation of the Episcopal Church, called for the unification of all Protestant churches under Anglican control and advocated Communist materialism as the most righteous vehicle for the Christian spirit. The Church forced Brown from his post in Arkansas in 1911 after he published his radical views on the Anglican Communion, and brought him to trial for heresy in 1924 for his rejection of the Church and biblical literalism. Brown subsequently became a hero in Communist circles and later an apologist for Stalin's purges. Carden seems most interested in what Brown's career tells us about the history of the Episcopal Church, and so devotes almost half the book to Brown's materialist heresy and trial, even though by then Brown was already an old man. Carden would have reached a wider audience had he dwelt more on Brown's time in Arkansas, and particularly his argument for racial separatism. Carden offers tantalising glimpses, especially of Brown's mentorship of George Alexander McGuire, the black Anglican who would go on to become a close associate of Marcus Garvey and leader of the African Orthodox Church in the 1920s. Was Brown an influential visionary or a marginal crank? Given this book's inward agenda the reader is left to wonder.