`a book which (like the first volume) will prove of indispensable
assistance to students working in this as well as cognate fields
for a long time to come ... it is a first-class achievement and
needs to be judged by the best standards ... This will provide
sustenance for years to come. May he complete his enterprise before
the world of Dissent is sucked uncomplainingly into the ecumenical
Hoover.'
W.R. Ward, Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society, Volume 50,
Part 6, October 1996
`Its uniqueness lies not only in its content, the conscious attempt
to present statistical data to back up the conclusions, but above
all it surveys a field which hitherto has not been covered in an
academic and easily readable presentation ... comprehensive and
valuable work ... Mr. Watts writes well and the book is a pleasure
to read ... there is much challenging material here for any
historian of the churches in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
to
consider ... a superb achievement by Michael Watts with his trinity
of works. He is to be congratulated especially for the stimulation
he will undoubtedly provide to his readers.'
Alan Ruston, Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society, Vol.
XXI, No. 3, April 1997
`a book which ... will prove of indispensable assistance to
students working in this as well as cognate fields for a long time
to come. The author lays under contribution an enormous amount of
source material as well as modern scholarship both published and
unpublished ... it is a first-class achievement and needs to be
judged by the best standards.'
W.R. Ward, Ecclesiastical History, Vol 48, No. 1 - Jan '97
`this book is by any standards a formidable scholarly achiement,
distinguished by the lucidity of its writing and by the care with
which its conclusions are set out. Watts has brought together his
remarkable knowledge of nonconformist print in the nineteenth
century with a painstaking analysis of the available statistical
data to produce a study which will help to alter the impression
created by many historians who produced books in the 1970s and
1980s ...
that evangelical nonconformity appealed chiefly to the
self-improving artisanry of the early industrial revolution. Watts
has nobly committed himself. Volume three will nevertheless be
eagerly awaited by
all who value meticulous and careful scholarship of the highest
order.'
David Hempton, The Queen's University of Belfast, The Economic
History Review, Volume L, No. 3, August 1997
`massive, fact-laden tome ... There is much not only to read, but
to ponder, in this big book.'
Books & Culture, September/October 1996
`this book is by any standards a formidable scholarly achievement,
distinguished by the lucidity of its writing and by the care with
which its conclusions are set out. ... Watts has brought together
his remarkable knowledge of nonconformist print in the nineteenth
century with a painstaking analysis of the available statistical
data to produce a study which will help to alter the impression
created by many historians who produced books in the 1970s and
1980s (myself included) that evangelical nonconformity appealed
chiefly to the self-improving artisanry of the early industrial
revolution. ... Volume three will ... be eagerly awaited by all who
value
meticulous and careful scholarship of the highest order.'
The Economic History Review, vol.L, no.3, August 1997
`a massive work of scholarship dealing with the period 1791-1859
and drawing illuminatingly on a mass of regional evidence for the
Dissenting communities and their expansion, as well as politics,
dissidence and respectability; useful appendices and distribution
maps. A tour de force.'
Northern History, 33
`this book is by any standards a formidable scholarly achievement,
distinguished by the lucidity of its writing and by the care with
which its conclusions are set out ... Michael Watts has brought
together his remarkable knowledge of Nonconformist print in the
nineteenth century with a painstaking analysis of the available
statistical data to produce a study which will help to alter the
impression created by many historians who produced books in the
1970s
and 1980s ... that evangelical Nonconformity appealed chiefly to
the self-improving artisanry of the early industrial revolution ...
impressive study.'
David Hempton, Queen's University, Belfast, The Historical
Association 1997
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