This study of the Dominican Order in the south-eastern provinces of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth offers a pointed critique of standard approaches to the history of the Counter-Reformation and post-Tridentine Catholicism. The classical historiography that has focused on change, confessional disciplining and the role of the Jesuits, Piotr Stolarski argues, is ‘ultimately descriptively inadequate’ (p. 15). Instead, the author posits a longer perspective concerned with deep continuities from the pre-Tridentine period and revealed within the history of the Dominican Order, whose numbers, popularity and influence grew impressively in Poland-Lithuania in the period after the Council of Trent. He also argues that Catholic reform was not a process dictated from above, but, as visible within the Dominican experience, involved the noble elites, who participated ‘through choice, patronage, and prayer’ in ‘a consensual and integrative process’ (p. 6). Addressing the region of Poland that is centred on Kraków, Lublin and Lwów (Małopolska and Ruthenia), this book illustrates Polish noble resistance to the Jesuits, including the case of the early seventeenth-century conflict between the Jesuits and Kraków University (the latter supported by Dominicans); the reforms within the Dominican Order (including in its schools and missions) in the post-Tridentine period that enhanced its popularity in this region; the pattern of patronage by social elites, particularly in the frontier regions of Ruthenia, where the Dominican order had long pre-Tridentine roots and was instrumental in Catholicising this borderland; the high preaching standards and humanist contents of sermons that bolstered Dominican popularity among the nobility of south-eastern Poland; the appeal of the Dominican tradition of piety that included sung liturgies, rosary confraternities and Marian shrines; and a Dominican promotion of the republicanism so central to Polish-Lithuanian politics and noble identity. Stolarski raises vital questions and offers much evidence on the popularity and expansionism of the Dominicans in this corner of Poland that indeed contests the stereotypes of the post-Tridentine Church and provides a compelling counterpoint to the usual arguments. However, Stolarski's repeated trumpeting of how deftly he has trampled the traditional historiography with his evidence leaves the reader, in the end, a bit tired of the argument. The book needed more editing, not only of the argumentation, but also of the excess of subdivision in the chapters which made the reading choppy and disjointed. The focus on the nobility to explain the popularity of Dominican practices was also disconcerting; although the sources are limited, some mention of the broader population would have strengthened the argument. Additionally, readers not familiar with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth could have benefitted by more explanation of this fascinating state's history and political structures, especially as Stolarski himself rightly argues for more consideration of the Polish-Lithuanian experience within the general history of Catholicism. All that being said, the author must be applauded for raising the arguments presented here, especially his attention to the continuities of Catholic history that survived from the medieval period through the Counter Reformation and his critique of the stereotype of Jesuit dominance in Catholic reform. In these pursuits this study makes a valuable contribution to the field.