This second volume takes up the story where the first left off. Like its predecessor it has three features which make it different from other histories, so that it is aimed at the widest possible audience. First, it does not separate church history from the wider history of the world in which it is set. Christians live in that wider world, and political, social and economic developments often determine the life of the church. Secondly, it provides direct quotations from the written sources. To make sure that the account covers British and American, as well as French and European, history, an English-speaking historian joins the French author.