This valuable contribution to the debate about the relation of religion to the modern city fills an important gap in the historiography of early nineteenth-century religious life. Although there is some evidence that strict doctrine led to a more restricted response to urban problems, extensive local and personal variations mean that simple generalizations should be avoided. Ian J.Shaw argues against earlier prejudiced views and shows that high Calvinists played a vigorous and successful part in the response of early nineteenth-century churches to the process of urbanization. The study includes six substantial case studies of ministers and their churches in Manchester and London. Four high Calvinist ministers are considered, with two studies of ministers holding to an evangelical Calvinist doctrine also included to provide instructive contrasts. Detailed social analysis of the congregations is based upon extensive use of manuscript and printed sources, sermons, and local and denominational press.

Reviews of new British and European publications and correspondence from readers.

First published in 1992.This volume of eleven specially commissioned essays celebrates the work of Robert K. Webb, one of the foremost historians of modern Britain. The contributors, established scholars from Britain, Canada, Australia and the United States, address some of the central themes in the history of nineteenth-century religion, including evangelicalism and the culture of the market economy, religious issues in the liberal politics of the 1830s, the radical atheist Robert Taylor, Charles Darwin, the Victorian ideal of `manliness', nineteenth century images of Mary Magdalene, the Jews in Victorian society, colonialism, the role of women missionaries as models of female achievement, and spiritualism during the Great War. Together these essays make a significant contribution to the study of the role of religion in Victorian society.