There has long been a pressing need for a substantial study of this important dimension of the Church of England.

In this work, Kenneth Hylson-Smith provides a comprehensive and fascinating account of High Churchmanship in England from the Reformation to the present day. There is detailed study of beliefs, trends, events, personal biographies, continuities and change, and relationships with the social, political, constitutional and economic history of the nation. There are careful evaluations of the lives and works of, for example, Hooker, Laud, Ferrar, Horsley, van Mildert, Gore, Wand, Ramsey and Leonard.

Dr Hylson-Smith also covers the poetry of Herbert and the theology of the Caroline divines; and groups and movements such as the Nonjurors, the Hutchinsonians, the Hackney Phalanx, the Oxford Movement, Christian Socialism, Liberal High Churchmanship and Affirming Catholicism. Throughout, very considerable, complex and often unexpected material is analysed not only judiciously but with clarity and verve

. With the different traditions within the Church of England such a focus of attention, this work makes an invaluable contribution to contemporary debate, as well as representing a unique and important work of history.