Caroline Bowden, Emily Vine, Tessa Whitehouse, eds., Religion and Lifecycles in Early Modern England, Manchester University Press: Manchester, 2021, pp. 328, £85.00, ISBN: 978-1-5261-4927.

discussions of this topic; Brad Gregory’s influential work in this area does not appear at all. The political focus of the book is worth considering in and of itself. Dures and Young have organised the book’s chapters principally around regnal dates and political events, rather than thematically. English Catholic studies have evolved considerably since the first edition of Dures’ history was published in 1983, and I do wonder whether this structure allows for acknowledgement of the broad range of approaches and methodologies employed by historians working in this field. Catholic resistance, for example, is still considered in terms of violence here, whereas current scholarship tends to consider the many forms of resistance that were possible more holistically. Nevertheless, the book offers a comprehensive introduction to Catholicism in post-Reformation England. It provides an overview of all of the significant events of the century between the beginning of Elizabeth I’s reign and the outbreak of the Civil Wars. Dures and Young consider the experiences and viewpoints of different lay and religious groups, from recusants to church papists to missionary priests and expatriates. They explain cogently the intricacies of how and where Catholics fit into the political zeitgeist of postReformation and pre-Civil Wars England. Undergraduates who are completely new to the history of the English Reformation and its political afterlife, and to Catholicism’s place in this history, will find in this book a clear and concise overview of the key events and their repercussions.