A crisis of faith confronted many Canadian Protestants in the late nineteenth century. Their religious beliefs were challenged by the new biological sciences and by historical criticism of the Bible. Personal salvation, for centuries the central concern of Christianity, no longer seemed an adequate focus in an age that gave rise to industrial cities and grave social problems.

No single word, Cook claims, catches more correctly the spirit of the late Victorian reform movement than 'regeneration': a concept originall meaning rebirth and applied to individuals, now increasingly used to describe social salvation.

In exploring the nature of social criticism and its complex ties to the religious thinking of the day, Cook analyses the thought of an extraordinary cast of characters who presented a bewildering array of nostrums and beliefs, from evolutionists, rationalists, higher critcis, and free-thinkers, to feminists, spiritualists, theosophists, socialists, communists, single-taxers, adn many more. THere is Goldwin Smith, 'the sceptic who needed God,' spreading gloom and doom from the comfort of the Grange; W.D. LeSueur, the 'positvist in the Post Office'; the heresiarch Dr R.M. Bucke, overdosed on Whitman, with his message of 'cosmis consciousness'; and a free-thinking, high-rolling bee-keeper named Allen Pringle, whose perorations led to 'hot, exciting nights in Napanee.' It is a world of such diverse figures as Phillips Thompson, Floar MacDonald Denison, Agnes Machar, J.W. Bengough, and J.S. Woodsworth, a world that made Mackenzie King.

Cook concludes that the path blazed by nineteenth-century religious liberals led not to the Kingdom of God on earth, as many had hoped, but, ironically, to the secular city.

Ramsay Cook is Professor Emeritus in teh Department of History at York University, where he taught for more than twenty-five years. He has published extensively in teh area of Canadian history, and has been a visiting professor at both Harvard and Yale. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and an Officer of the Order of Canada. Since 1989, he has been the General Editor of The Dictionary of Candian Biography.

Ramsay Cook's profile page

• Winner, Governor General's Award for Non-fiction

'The tale is spun with style, grace and wit.'

Stanley McMullin, <em>Hamilton Spectator</em>

'This is scholarly writing at its very best.'

Donald C. MacDonald, <em>Toronto Star</em>

'Cook's range and his mastery of sources, coupled with a fluid style and invigorating insights, make this book a delight to read.'

Roger Hall, <em>Globe and Mail</em>

'The Regenerators fascinated me from beginning to end.'

Ken Gerecke, <em>City Magazine</em>