This important book will become a definitive text on Scotland under James vii and during the following Williamite revolution. It is particularly distinctive firstly in its extensive use of local archives to paint a far richer and more satisfying picture of the period beyond the capital than is currently available, and secondly in its integration of analysis of James's reign and governance across Scotland with the events of the revolution that followed. Although the revolution did not follow familiar revolutionary ‘scripts’, the picture that emerges is of an ongoing period of revolutionary upheaval and disruption in Scottish public affairs. Readers of this Journal will perhaps be particularly interested in the analysis in the second and third chapters of James's experiment with religious toleration and pluralism, especially from 1687. The overall outlines of this radical policy are fairly familiar, but Raffe traces its actual impact in rich local detail beyond Edinburgh, and reveals varied fortunes for both Presbyterian resurgence and espiscopalian resilience. This produced a new and complicated multi-confessional situation, with competition for adherents as Catholics and Presbyterians looked to win followers and Episcopalians sought to maintain their flocks. The dynamics of this competition were complex: Presbyterians, for example, had to navigate the advantages of toleration for their activism with their distaste for the king's Catholicism. Evidence on the responses of the audience for this competition is of course harder to find, but Raffe's analysis of the messages from pulpit and press provides a stimulating sense of the nature of the religious marketplace. Drawing on church court records, Raffe also reveals the disruption to important ecclesiastical functions like poor relief and discipline which had been designed for implementation in a uniform rather than pluriform confessional situation. Similarly detailed analysis of James's interference in burgh politics follows before two final chapters on the revolution itself, highlighting the substantial local religious and political disruption involved, and the nature and legacy of the Revolution Settlement for Scotland's subsequent political development. The rich and detailed local research which underpins Raffe's analysis of these events as they affected Scotland as a whole will make this book essential reading for anyone interested in the subject.