Historical studies of charity, philanthropy and giving are becoming increasingly numerous, and they join a growing body of scholarly writing in various fields that also includes research on altruism, humanitarianism, NGOs, welfare states and additional forms of voluntary and obligatory giving. Thus the substantial volume under review here appears in a climate of heightened interest in and engagement with its general subject. The specific focus on charity and giving in Late Antiquity and medieval Judaism, Christianity and Islam naturally gives greater emphasis to charity as an aspect of faith, yet faith here includes ideology, law, and practice. In sum, the contributions to this collection present the major faith tenets of charitable giving, explain the shared ideas of charity that link these three faiths, communicate something of the historical changes affecting them, and present historical case studies that illustrate how ideas were translated into a variety of specific practices. Moreover, it is clear from reading this group of papers how deeply embedded were the practices of charitable giving in political, economic, social and cultural interaction and exchange. The articles constitute an important contribution to this growing field of study.

Charity and Giving in Monotheistic Religions includes sixteen articles, divided into three subsections, primarily according to chronology and faith. The introduction provides a useful orientation to the papers, but it could have gone further in highlighting the more general issues raised by discussions of charity, pointing to where similar themes and issues emerge, despite being lodged in different parts of the volume. More than is the case with many collected volumes, the articles here are closely related in their subject matter, and this makes the book uniquely valuable. Given this integrity, it is regrettable that the authors do not engage more with one anothers' contributions, pointing out connections and points of disagreement. As this volume grew out of an extended residential seminar with weekly presentations and a concluding conference, the ongoing discussions could have been reflected more in the written articles.

“The world of Late Antiquity and early Middle Ages” includes five contributions, each discussing an aspect of charity in Christianity and including Byzantine, Syriac and Catholic traditions. Of notable interest here are the conflicts of interest within the Byzantine state, as analysed by Avshalom Laniado. While promoting Christianity and its values, including voluntary poverty, the state nonetheless had an interest in notables retaining their wealth as part of the tax base. The process of establishing an equilibrium of temporal and spiritual interests was one factor shaping elite charitable practices in the Byzantine empire, and this theme recurs in articles by Rapp and Magnani.

“Medieval Islam” is the title of the second group of seven articles. The first of these addresses the transitions from Christianity to Islam through a study of the Christian pious foundations of the sixth–eighth centuries. The other six study aspects of Muslim charity in Syria, Egypt and Spain between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. Unavoidably, endowed foundations (Arabic waqf) are a central theme in this section, since they were the most well-documented and enduring form of medieval Muslim charitable giving. The articles do offer an excellent corrective, however, to this frequent distortion, by focusing also on legacies, gift giving and the role of charity in repentance and expiation.

Part 3, “The Jewish world”, might more correctly have been titled “Jewish charity through the eyes of the Cairo Geniza”, since all four contributions use documents from this famous cache to discuss charity as understood and practised among Jews in medieval Cairo and the places most connected to it. Quite usefully, this section includes a number of documents in facsimile, transcription and translation. It also contains two of the most thought-provoking articles in the collection. Miriam Frenkel demonstrates how the language and practice of charity pervaded commercial interactions, as well as social and communal relations. Voluntary giving and profitable economic enterprise were intertwined not only in metaphors but also in concrete practices. In a complementary discussion, Marina Rustow analyses how the language and logic of niʿma (benefit) and shukr (gratitude) infused politics, economic life and daily social interactions in equal measure. Through this understanding of niʿma, she connects the Geniza society to the broader medieval Muslim world.

As for the volume itself and its production, this seems to be an opportune moment to reflect more generally on some necessary features of collected volumes of papers. With the search and label features of word processors, together with more specialized programs, there seems to be no reason to omit an index from any book, unless it is published online and may be digitally searched. In a volume such as that under review, an index is one feature which helps make the collection of papers work together more usefully rather than being just a collection between covers. In fact, these articles have many shared themes and topics which could be more easily connected were it possible to search them topically. By the same logic, one would also expect to find a cumulative bibliography at the end of the volume, again, a relatively simple task in today's digitized world.

Finally, a weakness shared by many edited collections but in scholarly publishing more generally, is the lack of professional editorial contribution by the publisher. The present collection of papers contains articles approximately half of whose authors, if not more, use English as a non-native language. To the mind of this reviewer, the press has a professional obligation to ensure that the text is published with no errors of syntax or grammar. Together with the press, the editors, moreover, have a responsibility to produce a text that is far more free of typographical errors than the present one, in which they are just frequent enough to distract and occasionally confuse the reader.