Focusing on policy, rather than religious institutions, Professor Ward offers a brief, but comprehensive, account of religious belief and practice of all kinds in Europe between the Westphalia settlements in 1648 and the French Revolution. The book is organised around large regions, for instance, Central and Northwestern Europe (including Britain), Southern Europe and North and Eastern Europe. Professor Ward discusses the political, social and intellectual forces at play in each of these regions in order to allow the reader to understand changes in policy in their proper context. In addition, popular belief, which churches of all denominations regarded as suspicious, is presented in its context of traditional practice, and an attempt is made to assess the successes and failures of European domestic missions during this period. With its maps, glossary and guide to further reading, this will be a major aid to students of Christianity under the Ancien Régime.

"Probably the most prolific, and arguably the most learned, religious historian of his generation, W. R. Ward...has produced an admirable synthesis of his many years of labor on the history of early modern Christianity in Britain and continental Europe....a compressed and compact narrative that will repay reading, and then reading again." David Hempton, Books & Culture

"He covers the ground with such speed and complexity that the result is a compressed and compact narrative that will repay reading, and then reading again." Books & Culture