I thought this was going to be a really interesting book, but was disappointed. Like the other reviews, it was just a lot of data with no linking stories or leads. I would have liked a more narrated feel to it.

I recently bought a new kindle after my old one broke. For some reason I was unable to download this title from the cloud onto my kindle, therefore I will be unable to review this title. I am sorry for any inconvenience caused.

I had mixed feelings about this book. Some of it was really interesting, but although the entire book was very well-written and not overly verbose, there were some portions that I felt, personally, were less interesting than others. This may just have been my viewpoint.

Still, in the history of resistance to the norms of society and religious conventions, the Quakers and the other groups and individuals discussed in this book were fascinating to learn more about. I've read books that mention these things in the past, but this was a much more in-depth, account of these events. I thought the author did an excellent job of describing how things went from more or less grass-roots movements to extremes and was quite objective in her account.

Overall, this is a great book if you want to know more about religious dissent and those determined individuals who would let nothing but death stand in their way. Recommended to history buffs.

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher, provided through NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

The Nonconformist Revolution by Amanda J Thomas has just been published by Pen & Sword. I expected the book to really cover the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries with perhaps an epilogue covering the early twentieth century. Ha! I am honestly ashamed to admit that shows my ignorance!

The book starts with the French Cathars and the 1215 Fourth Lateran Council. It ends with Thomas Paine returning to America in 1800. Thomas shows how religious ideas that the Church wanted to suppress were spread by merchants, pedlars and other itinerants. We can see the link between non-conformist ideas and business starting in the Middle Ages. Although the best-known examples of that link are the Quaker bankers such as Sampson Lloyd and the Barclays; and chocolate makers such as Joseph Fry and John Cadbury, Thomas gives us extensive detail about the iron-makers and mining families.

And when I say “extensive detail”, that is like saying the Roundheads and Cavaliers had a minor tiff for a short period. I have never read a book with so many names. (Although one family Thomas mentions economised on names: four successive generations of a Marches family passed the name John Spencer from father to son. I confess that I’d struggle to tell you whether John Spencer I, II, III or IV developed the iron business the most.) The names! Oh, Lord, so many names! There are some real insights of interest in the book, such as showing how Benjamin Franklin, Joseph Priestley, Josiah Wedgwood shared ideas and influences because of their Nonconformist connection. The book is excellent when sketching out the broader picture but, sadly, there are too many occasions when Thomas fills page after page with names, marriages and other minutiae. The notes, bibliography and index consume 30% of the book, with 300+ works cited in the bibliography. The research that has informed the book is phenomenal but I’m afraid research alone doesn’t make it an interesting read.

The Welshman in me was hoping for enlightenment as to the differences between the denominations who built so many chapels in my village: Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, etc. but that’s one aspect Thomas doesn’t scrutinise in detail.

One sentence did make me smile. I’ve never seen an eighteenth century coffee house referred to as a “café” before!
#TheNonconformistRevolution #NetGalley

I found this book to be informative and well researched however I had a hard time staying interested in this book.

There were some very interesting points touched on and the impact of the spread of dissent particularly the ways in which nonconformist rebelled against the church and how dissent and nonconformist ideas were spread through more micro networks.

However, other areas that I was less interested in, like the mining and production of iron and how it spread the influence of early Quakers, was overly detailed and I felt my interest wavering.

Overall this book ebbed and flowed for me. I had parts that I really enjoyed and areas where I struggled.