Historians and the Church of England

James Kirby offers not only a valuable contribution to the contemporary historiography, but also a book that is useful for any category of reader and it helps him to better understand not only the English history, but also its spirituality. * PhD. Iuliu-Marius Morariu, Anuario de la Historia de la Iglesia *
[S]uperb new monograph. ... Kirby has written an original and profound book that will permanently alter the way serious students of modern British historiography think about their subject. * S. J. D. Green, Journal of Modern History *
[A]dmirable. * Robert G. Ingram, Left History *
Historians and the Church of England is a delightful, lucidly-written work of reclamation where religiously-conditioned, carefully nuanced contributions to public memory have been rescued from certain neglect in a secularizing will to power. Students and scholars interested in learned churchmanship as a feature of Anglican patrimony, in the development of the modern historical imagination, and in the possibilities of a scholarship that is neither agnostic nor fundamentalist, will find themselves indebted to Kirby and his work. * Michael J. G. Pahls, Newman Studies Journal *
The greatest strength of Historians and the Church of England is the clarity and force of Kirby's writing...It makes Victorian historiography, and the history of ideas more broadly, seem exciting, consequential, and worth understanding and listening to regardless of one's own research specialization. It is a model for how to write engagingly while still reaming faithful to the core remit of intellectual history. * Emily Rutherford, Victorian Studies *
James Kirby's work is well researched and sure-footed ... Historians and the Church of England is a fine example of how much faith there is to notice in late Victorian and early twentieth-century British intellectual life for those with eyes to see. * Timothy Larsen, Times Literary Supplement *
James Kirbys highly original monograph...opens up a fascinating insight into a world of which most British historians today are but dimly aware. In a wide-ranging study of British historiography,he draws on a host of names some of them very familiar, some probably unfamiliar, almost certainly nearly all however unread today to construct a persuasive (to this reviewer) argument about the impact of Anglicanism on the development of historical scholarship at the end of the nineteenth century. * Jeremy Morris, Theology *
Kirby presents a substantially revised picture of the state of English historical scholarship around the turn of the century, a reassertion of the scholarly and intellectual creativity of the Church of England into the Edwardian era, and a series of bracing challenges to established orthodoxies in the histories of historiography and national identity. It is simply a pleasure, finally, to read such well-turned prose, and to see such a subtle and powerful intellect at work. * Alex Middleton, Twentieth Century British History *
James Kirby's book is a rewarding, diligent, and empathetic excursion into a lost world of Victorian intellectual history, which does much to reanimate these historiographical questions and to explain the commitment of historians to their vocation. * Alexander Hutton, Reviews in History *
[Kirby] has produced an excellent study ... his analysis of the development of history as a discipline, particularly on the development of constitutionalism and socioeconomic history, is remarkable. Overall, the book deserves a central place in a historiography syllabus, as the wealth of materials consulted, the writing and organization of the work, and the analysis of the scholarship by amateurs and professionals from the era demonstrate a successful shaping of modern history. The footnotes, selected bibliography, and index are phenomenal ... Essential. * CHOICE *
Kirby accomplishes precisely what he seeks to do, and for that he deserves high praise. * Gareth Atkins, Journal of Ecclesiastical History *