The author succeeds in making this long and unusual history an interesting read. As a piece of ecclesiastical history it is, of course, important for laying out the financial foundations and functions of the Church of England over a contemporary half-century. Fiscal history is not often, however, riveting. While that term may be too strong a claim for this work, it is, nevertheless, a fascinating study rooted in extensive archival research.

Chandler acknowledges the difficulties in his most helpful introductory essay: narrative history is not in vogue, much less institutional history. By contrast, he notes that much of life is experienced as narrative and most of us live and work in institutions. Thus, “I have sought to fashion a narrative which articulates an over-arching argument about this distinctive institution and its place in the Church it sought, often laboriously, even thanklessly, to serve.” The work of the Church Commissioners arose out of a foundation in the context of the post-war Labour governments of 1945–1951 and the new primacy of Archbishop of Canterbury Geoffrey Fisher. Chandler's thesis is that the body was a pragmatic liberal bureaucracy that “existed not merely to maintain arrangements but actively to reform them.” The “arrangements,” of course, had to do with nothing less than “the making, organising and spending of money, all in the name of the mission of the Church” (3).

What was being rationalized for the latter half of the twentieth century were the endowments of the Church of England that had been reorganized in the early nineteenth century under the Ecclesiastical Commission. In turn, that body was a reform of the early eighteenth-century Queen Anne's Bounty, itself a reform of the medieval endowments dating from the Tudor reformations.

The contemporary story follows the successes of investment by the church commissioners during the commission's first three decades and the application of the fruits of that investment for raising the standard of clerical stipends, providing pensions, repairing or enhancing the church's fabric, and underwriting domestic, communion-wide, and foreign missions. The tensions of these decades are also investigated in regard to the General Synod's criticisms of the commission. As the church of England's governing body, the Synod appeared jealous of the largely independent commission. Two issues stand out in the analysis: the Synod's embarrassment at the sheer amount of money that investments were making during the six years and moral concern over apartheid and Church investments in South Africa. In explicating the details of this story, Chandler addresses the complex ethical issues as they played out between the General Synod and the commissioners.

The chronology of Chandler's work is, quite logically, fixed by the terms of successive archbishops of Canterbury: Geoffrey Francis Fisher (1945–1961), Arthur Michael Ramsey (1961–1974), Frederick Donald Coggan (1974–1979), Robert Alexander Kennedy Runcie (1979–1991), and George Leonard Carey (1991–1998). The archbishops were at the head of both the General Synod and the commissioners—in some respects an uncomfortable position. One of the factors differentiating Chandler's work from the usual ecclesiastical histories is that the “heroes” are not the usual suspects. This appears clearly as he shows the organizing genius of Fisher and his attention to detail in regard to the commissioners' work. In other histories, while his efficiency is often noted in passing, Fisher is usually characterized as less than engaging. Contrast this with Ramsey, whom we are (for reasons of his theological restatement, manifest spirituality, and ardent ecumenism) usually inclined to regard highly. Here he appears, however, as one embarrassed by the financial side of things, leaving the work largely to others, and faulted for not seeing its importance in the mission of the Church.

Chandler's concluding chapters deal with the financial crisis of the 1970s, the inflationary spiral of the 1980s, and the recession and slow recovery of the 1990s. Also evident in the telling of the story is the gradual alleviation of frustration and suspicion between the commissioners, on one side, and the General Synod, on the other. This work is, as it were, still in progress. The problem remains one in which the commissioners attempt to “steer a steady course” in a situation where “so much in British Christianity [is] losing its vital force” (481). In addition to an extensive bibliography, the book ends with four important appendices that serve to relieve the text of overburdening detail in regard to relevant personnel and legal measures.