Religion in the Age of Decline : Organisation and Experience in Industrial Yorkshire, 1870-1920

Rating:
Summary: Absolute clap-trap - terrible scholarly performance
Review: I have just started my doctorate at Harvard and I am concerned with Religion across Europe; especially England. I picked up Religion in the Age of Decline to provide an insight into the state of religion in the North of England in the late nineteenth century. I was - and this may sound strong - disgusted with what I found. A broken, fitful style made it hard to follow. The content was anodyne, uninteresting and abtruse. I did not manage to pull myself past page 250 of a 450 page book. What sounds like an interesting project: a study of a phenomena that was said to be on the decline, becomes nothing more than a tired and lacklustre synthesis of already existing ideas. I recommend any students - and this is the only group that may find some use for the book - stay well clear, and the rest of the reading public that may have picked up on its existence through some arcane and esoteric magazine like myself, my only advice is circumvent this scholar who is without doubt On the Decline, that is if he ever held some ethereal height from which to fall which I strongly doubt. He thanks Asa Briggs in his acknowledgements, with such eminent figures helping this enterprise I wonder how it became such baloney. AVOID.