Reprint of the original, first published in 1877.

Concern and debate over the role of religion in the make up of the United Kingdom is a contemporaneously relevant as it was in the nineteenth century. God and Greater Britain is a survey of the contribution of religion to society, politics, culture and national self-understanding in Britain and Ireland at a pivotal period in their historical development. It derives from primary research as well as from an extensive synthesis of the secondary literature. John Wolffe's timely and stimulating appraisal of the centrality of religion is well illustrated with specific episodes and uniquely places religion in a firm historical perspective.

Although we take it for granted today, the concept of "energy" transformed nineteenth-century physics. In The Science of Energy, Crosbie Smith shows how a North British group of scientists and engineers, including James Joule, James Clerk Maxwell, William and James Thomson, Fleeming Jenkin, and P. G. Tait, developed energy physics to solve practical problems encountered by Scottish shipbuilders and marine engineers; to counter biblical revivalism and evolutionary materialism; and to rapidly enhance their own scientific credibility. Replacing the language and concepts of classical mechanics with terms such as "actual" and "potential" energy, the North British group conducted their revolution in physics so astutely and vigorously that the concept of "energy"—a valuable commodity in the early days of industrialization—became their intellectual property. Smith skillfully places this revolution in its scientific and cultural context, exploring the actual creation of scientific knowledge during one of the most significant episodes in the history of physics.

This biography provides an exploration of the formative influences, development, and impact of the theology of David Smith Cairns, Scottish minister, academic, and writer, during the high point of British imperial expansion, and at a time of social tension caused by industrialization. It describes and evaluates his role in the Church's efforts to face major challenges relating to its relationships to the different world religions, its response to the First World War, and its attitude to the scientific disciplines that called into question some of its longstanding perceptions and suppositions. An eminent figure, born into the United Presbyterian Church and rooted in the Church in Scotland, Cairns operated ecumenically and internationally. His apologetics challenged the prevailing assumptions of the day: that science provided the only intellectually legitimate means of exploring the world, and that scientific determinism ruled out the Christian conception of the world as governed by providence. A major feature of his theology was the presentation of Christianity as a "reasonable" faith, and throughout his life he maintained a particular concern for young people, having endured his own crisis of faith when a student in Edinburgh. He enjoyed a decades-long involvement with the World Student Christian Federation, based on a mutually enriching relationship with one of its leading figures, the renowned American evangelist John Raleigh Mott.