Book recommendations please? (Protestantism)

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Hi! I'm not sure if this is the right place for this question but I've seen MN help with lots of odd queries before, so I decided to ask.

I'm an atheist who was educated at Catholic schools and I know almost nothing about other Christian denominations. I'm working on a project which requires a fair amount of background knowledge on Protestantism, and after going down a few Wikipedia rabbitholes I wondered if anyone knows of any books that explain things in a more ordered way.

I need to know the history of the different denominations in England at least back to the 18th century (the Evangelical movement is probably going to be relevant) and the differences in theological beliefs for say - Calvinists, or Methodists, with the specialist terminology explained. (As an indication, on my wiki travels I was fine with 'sola scriptura', guessed right on 'predestination' and was floored by 'supralapsarianism' )

I need the information for sociological/historical work, but recommendations of books written from a more faith-focused perspective would be welcome too. It's just to extend my background knowledge.

Thank you!

Not a book, but the UK Methodist website would give you a lot of information about Methodism, for a starting point. Hover over 'About Us' and there are a lot of different options to mooch through.

Try the very short introduction books. There is one on Protestantism which is likely to tell you something about the ideas behind the movement. The one on Anglicanism is very good for a quick run through how it plays out in the English context.

We studied the long reformation at college and the text books were Peter Wallace 'The Long European Reformation' and Euonymus Cameron ' The Long Reformation.' Both cover the period of the 14th to 18th centuries as there was a lot of background to HenryVIII and it took a long time to work itself through. Hopefully a combination of history and theology should get you started.

It is worth remembering that if you get three theologians in a room you get four opinions, I suspect the same is true for historians. Good luck.