The nineteenth century was one of great system-builders, and while we are perhaps more familiar with British or German architects, James Bratt unveils Abraham Kuyper's efforts to construct Dutch society, especially Calvinism, for modernity, an atlas for the Dutch world. What makes Kuyper so remarkable is his equally prodigious talents at intellectual system-building, organisational founding and grassroots mobilising. These talents propelled him into numerous noteworthy roles: pastor, university founder and professor of theology, newspaper publisher, leader of a secession Church, spiritual writer, political party organiser and parliamentarian, and eventually prime minister of the Netherlands. Any of these roles would make him interesting; all of them combined make him monumental, and a challenge for a historian. James Bratt meets the challenge especially well. Bratt's biography is intellectual and social-political. That suits the subject at hand. Bratt begins with Kuyper's early life and background and moves quickly into his intellectual formation at the University of Leiden, where he encountered the foremost liberal thinkers of his day. Here, early on, a trajectory was set of attempting to reconcile Calvinism and modernity. After this formative period, during which Kuyper settled in a more traditional confessional Calvinism, Bratt describes two further periods: the middle period when Kuyper built the institutions for which he is known, such as the Free University of Amsterdam and the Anti-Revolutionary political party, and the evening of Kuyper's life when as esteemed movement leader he dealt with the challenges of sustaining and passing on his movement. This historical framework for understanding Kuyper's life along with careful research in primary sources, everything from love letters to sermons to parliamentary speeches, makes James Bratt's biography a standard for studies in modern social and religious history.