This is a highly useful and much needed account of the history of the United Church of Canada. A collection of essays contributed by a variety of authors, this volume nevertheless seems like a single-authored book. Part i, composed of eight chapters, provides a seamless and cohesive chronological narrative of this institution's recent past, while part ii, composed of six chapters, deals with ‘thematic issues’. The volume is illustrated with photographs and each chapter in the chronological section follows the same format, beginning with a helpful introductory biographical and statistical ‘quick reference guide’ to the Church's leadership and demographics in the period under discussion. The volume begins with a genealogical chart of the church unions which gave birth to the United Church – the largest Protestant denomination in Canada – in 1925 and with an introductory chapter on the history of the Church's formation. But rather than focus on the Church's antecedents, or on ecclesiastical rivalries and internal squabbles, this refreshing and modern account chooses to explore the Church's aspirations to be Canada's national Church – ‘the church of the people’ – assessing the Church's role within Canadian society at large. As the editor points out, this is the first academic history of the United Church and, as such, it manages to be neither overly celebratory nor condemnatory; rather, it attempts dispassionately to explore the Church's engagement with social and political issues, dealing sensitively with the Church's attitudes to, and associations with, marginal groups. Significant space is devoted to the Church's response to the ‘rise of Aboriginal, francophone, and feminist voices’. The authors are sensible of the broader historical context, addressing, for example, the impact on the Church of economic depression in the 1930s, post-war disaffection and the identity politics of the 1960s. In a way this volume is more than a history of the United Church; the Church's story provides an insight into the history of Canada in the twentieth century. Despite this effort at academic detachment and attempt to situate the Church within a wider context, the volume does still come across as a little inward-looking: a book by the Church for the Church. As Don Schweitzer admits in his introduction, the book was an exercise in self-identification, written to help the Church ‘find a new vision for itself’. As such it lacks a comparative dimension and neglects to engage fully with some relevant historiographical themes. I was hoping to learn more about how the fate of the United Church compared with that of other Canadian denominations and with that of other comparable national institutions from other countries. For example, the volume describes the 1950s as the United Church's ‘Golden Age’; these findings would seem to support the secularisation thesis of Callum Brown who contends that secularisation in Britain occurred only in the 1960s, rather than taking root in an earlier period (The Death of Christian Britain, London–New York 2000). Did Canada experience a similar trend? The authors, however, miss an opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to this debate. Despite these disappointments, I found this anthology to be highly readable, well-researched and thoughtful. The book provides a useful introduction to the ecclesiastical and, indeed, social, history of twentieth-century Canada.