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GOD AND GREATER BRITAIN: RELIGION AND NATIONAL LIFE IN BRITAIN AND IRELAND, 1843 1945. By John Wolffe. Routledge, London, 1994. Pp. 324. £ 40.00. John Wolffe's 1991 monograph on the mid-Victorian 'Protestant Crusade' will be familiar to students of the religious and political history of that period. His interest in the relationship between religion and national consciousness, evident in that volume, is taken further in this new book. He describes it as an advance towards a more general interpretation and seeks to cross the conventional divide between monograph and textbook. It is his hope that it will have something of interest for specialist, student and 'general reader' alike. Wolffe also wants to encourage further contact between 'church' history and 'mainstream' history. Religion does not 'explain' everything but neither should it be marginalized. Such objectives are laudable enough and the author has tackled the task with commendable clarity. He has been at considerable pains, from the outset, to tell the reader what to expect and to explain the structure of his enterprise. He recognizes, however, that historians of religion have often been very coy about defining the scope of their enquiries. What does 'religion' signify? How is its vitality to be assessed? Is it an individual and private matter or an associational and public affair? Where does 'superstition' begin and 'religion' end-or is no such division possible? These, and related, questions are not new, but Wolffe is right to address them before tackling more specifically 'historical' problems. He also recognizes that he is on similarly difficult terrain when trying to conceptualize 'nation' and 'nationalism', but again helpfully explains the main approaches that have been adopted. What emerge are three broad categories-official religion, unofficial religion, and quasi-religion-though the boundaries between them can be blurred. These categories provide the framework for the investigation that follows. 'Evangelicalism', in all its complexity, and 'Catholicism' in different ways 'form' Victorian religion. They had more in common, Wolffe argues, than their adherents were ready to acknowledge and each, in different ways, could give a powerful stimulus to the defining and strengthening of community. The fabric of religious life in Britain and Ireland underwent very considerable change in the half-century before 1843. Subsequent chapters then probe the various branches of official religion and their social significance. A balance is maintained between considering the overall national strength of particular denominations and investigating what was happening in specific localities-in Hebden Bridge, for example. It cannot be claimed that Dr. Wolffe has any startling revelations for us, but he is so obviously well read that students cannot fail to benefit from his judicious summaries and assessments. Only occasionally do his own assumptions become explicit-as, for example, when he comments that, although in some respects General Booth's outlook was a deeply conservative one, the Salvation Army still possessed a strong emotional appeal blended with genuine social concern. The analysis then moves on to reflect on the 'Christian non-churchgoer'­that category so infuriating for clergy. Dr. Wolffe sees in the relatively small extent of organized secularism, compared with the widespread 'diffusive Christianity', confirmation that it was 'unofficial' religion (itself perhaps less 'supernatural' in