Welsh Journals

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and Nonconformity initially with the Liberal Party but later with Labour and socialism. Clyde Binfield shows how Nonconformist theology and culture were expressed through architecture in the rebuilding of London's City Temple and Bournemouth's Pushon Memorial Church after their destruction by enemy bombs in the second world war. All these chapters serve to demonstrate not only the way in which Nonconformity influenced and was influenced by the pervading culture, but also how Nonconformity developed its own heterogenous culture, one that provided thousands of people with a purpose for life, a framework for ethical living, hope for the future and a sense of identity. Alongside these essays, Phyllis Mack and Marjorie Reeves explore more unexpected aspects of Nonconformist history, discussing women's preaching, especially that of the Methodist Mary Taft, and the tradition of eighteenth century literary women respectively. While there has been an attempt recently to discover women's history, or even rewrite history from a feminist perspective, all done to restore a balance where half of humankind appears to have been neglected and even deliberately ignored, one is still left with a sense that these issues are peripheral, even in a history of nonconformity. The very fact that Nonconformity can be viewed as a 'tradition' betrays the fact that conformity rather than nonconformity was possibly more important by the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. What is offered here is both interesting and scholarly, but inevitably partial. The various nonconformist bodies are not treated as separate entities providing a colourful array of possible cultural and counter-cultural influences; preaching and preachers are spoken of only in passing; and no real space is given to Wales, surely a howling omission when we consider the significance of Welsh Nonconformity in the development of Welsh culture. Nevertheless, Culture and the Nonconformist Tradition celebrates and records a history which is in real danger of being passed over because it does not belong to the establishment and because of its spectacular decline during the last century. For this reason alone, its publication is to be welcomed. Robert Pope Bangor Ceri Davies, John Davies o Fallwyd (Caernarfon: Pantycelyn Press, 2001), ISBN 1903314143, pp. 103. £ 5.00. (A Welsh language publication)