In 1509, Johannes Pfefferkorn, a convert from Judaism, and a number of allies, including prominent Dominicans in Cologne, initiated a campaign to collect and destroy Jewish books within the Holy Roman Empire. However, their cause encountered an unexpected obstacle when the noted Christian Hebraist, humanist, and jurist Johannes Reuchlin issued a statement condemning the confiscations in 1510. David H. Price's Johannes Reuchlin and the Campaign to Destroy Jewish Books offers a thorough examination of Reuchlin's role in the controversy and its place in his life and career. As Price notes in the first chapter, the conflict has been interpreted in numerous ways. It has been seen as a debate about the status of Jews and Judaism within the Empire and as a turf war between humanists and scholastics over the legitimacy of philology as a discipline and its relevance to theology. Reuchlin has been seen as a hero of toleration, champion of free inquiry, precursor to the Reformation, heretic, mystic, magician, and as a self-serving scholar more interested in books than people. Price argues that all of these descriptions carry some truth, though none is adequate on its own as a frame for viewing Reuchlin or his struggles. Understanding Reuchlin and the conflicts that surrounded his defense of Jewish books requires attention to the many contexts in which he operated and the controversy that unfolded. Price's study far surpasses that requirement and could become a standard introduction for students of Reuchlin.

The book's early chapters concentrate on Reuchlin's credentials as a humanist, jurist, and Hebraist. Born in the town of Pforzheim, Reuchlin was a precocious student, distinguishing himself early on as a master of both Latin and Greek and one of the few Germans whose abilities in both languages were widely respected both north and south of the Alps. As one of the leading advocates of Greek and of philology, he had a broad network of humanist supporters and admirers. Reuchlin's ability to mobilize those supporters after he was targeted by the Inquisition for being impermissibly favorable to the Jews is part of the reason that so many have interpreted these events as a contest between scholastics and humanists. Reuchlin himself tried to make it one.

Throughout the controversy, Reuchlin's connections served him well. Price points out that, though he was influential within German academic circles, Reuchlin's reputation was built primarily on his talents as a jurist and diplomat. Reuchlin forged close ties with the rulers of Württemberg, particularly as a councilor to Eberhard the Bearded; he served as judge for the Swabian league; and he traveled to Rome on behalf of Philipp, Elector of the Palatinate. For his efforts in all fields, Emperor Friedrich III granted Reuchlin the title of Count Palatine in 1492. Friedrich's physician, Jacob ben Jehiel Loans, took Reuchlin on as a student, providing him with his first opportunity to study Hebrew and Hebrew literature in earnest. Reuchlin repeatedly turned political service into a scholarly opportunity; he took advantage of a mission to Rome in 1498 on behalf of Elector Philipp to build his library and to study Hebrew under the tutelage of Obadiah Sforno. Price's careful attention to these multiple, interconnected pursuits makes it clear why Reuchlin's views on the book confiscations were so important and helps to explain why he was such a formidable opponent to Hoogstraeten and the other foes of Jewish learning.

Price begins to examine in earnest Reuchlin's position on Jews and Judaism as well as his role in the book controversy in Chapters 4 through 6. Josel of Rosheim described Reuchlin's passion for Jewish learning as miraculous; his reputation has endured, and Gershom Scholem praised his work. On the other hand, Heiko Oberman has cautioned against venerating Reuchlin, as the champion of Jewish books was also the author of an anti-Jewish polemic in 1505, and he clearly saw Christianity as the superior religion throughout his life. Price deftly steers a middle course, acknowledging the limitations of Reuchlin's toleration while describing how his views changed as his acquaintance with Jews and Jewish learning deepened. Price uses the maturation of Reuchlin's kabbalistic knowledge between his first treatise on the subject, De Verbo Mirifico (1494), and his last, De Arte Cabbalistica (1517), as an example. While the early work displayed a relatively weak grasp of esoteric Judaism and required the narrative's spokesperson for Judaism to reject the Talmud and admit the superiority of Christianity, the later work showed the fruit of his years of study and placed no such demands on its Jewish representative.

Price also qualifies Reuchlin's actual impact on the campaign against Jewish books. He shows that the campaign's first real targets, the Jews of Frankfurt, were able to halt the confiscation of their books before Reuchlin got involved, partly because the provisions of the mandate to carry out the seizure ran roughshod over the rights of local authorities like the city leaders of Frankfurt and the Archbishop of Mainz. The arguments against the confiscations in Frankfurt prefigured many of the claims Reuchlin would later make in favor of the rights of Jews within the Empire. Price further argues that Emperor Maximilian was rethinking his strategies for dealing with Jews in the Empire and was beginning to see them as a valuable resource for financing his initiatives. Thus, Pfefferkorn's campaign was already effectively halted by the time Reuchlin got involved. However, the would-be censors had a larger goal of making it impossible to practice Judaism in the Empire. Reuchlin's involvement brought his international contacts to bear on the issue and Hoogstraeten, as Inquisitor for Teutonia, countered by opening an investigation of Reuchlin's statements in favor of Jewish writings. This shifted the center of the debate from Jewish texts to Reuchlin's texts and realigned the parties in the conflict. Moreover, Reuchlin had made an argument both for the value of Jewish texts for Christians and for the equal status of Jews and Christians before the law; these were significant developments in the unfolding controversy, as well as for Jewish-Christian relations in the Empire.

In the final four chapters, Price examines the hearings and trials to which Reuchlin was subjected and the controversy's connection to the looming “Luther affair.” Here Price's earlier attention to Reuchlin's credentials and contacts pays off as he shows Reuchlin deftly maneuvering around Hoogstraeten. The case was heard in a number of courts: first in Mainz, then in Speyer, and eventually in Rome. But it also played out in a series of published exchanges between Reuchlin and Pfefferkorn and, afterwards, between the allies of both men. Reuchlin's mobilization of his humanist allies and the shift of venue to Rome both initially seemed to favor him. But Reuchlin's case coincided with the beginning of Luther's efforts at reform and, though Reuchlin did not support Luther's cause, the two controversies were quickly linked in the minds of many. Reuchlin had vocal supporters among the reformers, including Franz von Sickingen, who was ready to use force on Reuchlin's behalf. Price argues that it is no coincidence that an embattled Pope Leo X condemned both Luther and Reuchlin within days of each other in 1520. Rome could no longer afford to tolerate protracted conflicts that chipped away at its authority.

Johannes Reuchlin and the Campaign to Destroy Jewish Books is a valuable contribution to a field in which there is substantial interest. Price offers a complex understanding of a subject that has been too frequently oversimplified. Yet he manages to avoid turning complexity into needless complication, and maintains a clarity and accessibility that will serve non-specialists as well as more dedicated students of Reuchlin.