"The book stresses contextual and regional understanding of religion. Among the subjects covered for all of England and Wales are the geography of the Church of England, Roman Catholicism, the old and new dissenting denominations, the spatial complementarity of denominations, and their importance for political history. A range of further questions are then analysed in even greater detail, using massive parish datasets of religious, socio-economic and demographic data for 2,443 English and Welsh parishes. Among the issues treated are regional continuities in religion, the growth of religious pluralism, Sunday schools and child labour during industrialisation, free and appropriated church sittings, landownership and religion, and urbanisation and regional 'secularisation'. Regional contrasts between denominations, and between Wales and England, are persistent themes. The long-term importance of the geography of religion is stressed, for it bears on many crucial modern questions of regional cultures and national identities." "This book's advanced methods and findings will have far-reaching influence within the disciplines of history, historical and cultural geography, religious sociology, religious studies, and in the social science community in general."--BOOK JACKET.
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