This book is the twelfth volume of sixteen in the series The Worlds of Eastern Christianity, 300–1500. The first half deals with the languages and literatures of eastern Christianity, while the last eight treat particular themes. This volume contains sixteen essays written by leading scholars in the field that have stood the test of time. Most of them come from the last thirty years, but one was originally published in German as long ago as 1936. It, and three articles that originally appeared in French, have been specially translated for this series, which will make them particularly useful for those unable to read the original texts with ease.

It goes without saying that each of the articles is a classic and the publishers are to be commended for producing them in such an accessible format, given that many of the original sources are now hard to obtain. The book is subdivided into five general areas, beginning with the ‘formative period’ of eastern Christianity, which is taken to mean the three centuries from the First Council of Nicaea (325) to the rise of Islam. The four articles in this section all deal with some challenge to Orthodoxy, whether within or without the Christian community.

The second set of four articles all concern the rise of Islam and the Christian reaction to it. Given the importance of this theme today, this section is particularly welcome and will likely be the book's main appeal to our contemporaries. There then follow two articles on iconoclasm and one giving a survey of ‘anti-Latin’ texts, by which is meant critiques of the theological positions adopted by Rome that failed to find an echo in the east. The last section is entitled ‘The tools of argument’ and deals mainly with collections of patristic sayings and early attempts at writing systematic theology, particularly in the Semitic world.

Many of the subjects covered in this volume are little known and these articles will provide a most valuable introduction to them. It must be said however, that this is a book for specialists and not for the general reader seeking to be informed about Byzantine Christianity. There is an introduction that puts the essays in broader perspective, but this cannot overcome the fact that they were written independently of each other and seldom overlap. Few people will read the entire book but many will consult the papers or sections of particular interest to them. The publishers have given us a valuable compendium of scholarship in a relatively little-known branch of learning and this volume will serve the academic community accordingly.