meticulously researched book ... his detailed yet highly-readablbe account of the last flowering of the Carmarthenshire aristocracy shows them to have made a 'wide-ranging and constructive contribution to the nineteenth century Welsh society'.

Carmarthen Journal

Cragoe's work helpfully complicates our understanding of social and cultural change in 19th-century Wales. ... those interested in the making of modern Wales will be grateful to Cragoe for making us think more systematically about the social, cultural, and political contributions of the Anglican aristocracy to the making of Welsh identities in the 19th century.

The Times Higher Education Supplement, 25 July 1997

His detailed anlaysis of landowning and farming, his discussion of the paternalism exercised by the aristocracy in both local government and politics, and his fascinating reconstruction of the Anglican church under bishops Thirlwall and Jones make excellent reading ... he has raised searching questions about the supposed collapse of the group in the context of a rising tide of nonconformity.

J.V. Beckett, University of Nottingham, History 83/269