The book is a new study that examines the contrasting extension of the Anglican Church to England's first two colonies, Ireland and Virginia in the 17th and 18th centuries. It discusses the national origins and educational experience of the ministers, the financial support of the state, and the experience and consequences of the institutions.

James B. Bell is a Fellow of the Rothermere American Institute, Oxford University, UK, and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He is the author of The Imperial Origins of the King's Church in Early America, 1607-1783 (Palgrave, 2004) and A War of Religion: Dissenters, Anglicans and the American Revolution (Palgrave, 2008). He has taught at Princeton University, Barnard College, the College of Wooster, and the Ohio State University, USA.