Religion and Political Culture in Britain and Ireland
From the Glorious Revolution to the Decline of Empire

A comparative history which brings to life religious and political cultures in all parts of Britain.

David Hempton (Author)

9780521479257, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 26 January 1996

204 pages
23.4 x 15.4 x 1.4 cm, 0.32 kg

'… we find information, illumination and wisdom, often overturning popular received opinion.' Themelois Volume 23:1

The main theme of this book is religion and identity - not only national identity, but also regional and local identities. David Hempton penetrates to the heart of vigorous religious and political cultures, both elite and popular, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He brings to life a diverse and variegated spectrum of religious communities in all of the British Isles. With so much new British history really an extended version of old English history, Hempton has devoted more attention to the Celtic fringes, especially Ireland. It is an exercise in comparative history, but he also shows how richly coloured is the religious history of these islands. He demonstrates that even in their cultural distinctiveness, the various religious traditions have had more in common than is sometimes imagined. The book arises from the 1993 Cadbury Lectures at the University of Birmingham.

1. The Church of England: a great English consensus?
2. The Methodist revolution?
3. Evangelical enthusiasm and national identity in Scotland and Wales
4. The making of the Irish Catholic nation
5. Ulster Protestantism: the religious foundations of rebellious loyalism
6. Religious and political culture in urban Britain
7. Religion and identity in the British Isles: integration and separation
8. Conclusions.

Subject Areas: History of religion [HRAX]