Heiko Oberman's description of Calvinism as the Reformation of refugees aptly characterizes the experience of many of the Reformed religious leaders and laity during the first generations of the movement, from the 1540s onward. His analysis and that of others have shown that this refugee experience shaped the Reformed theological outlook, by reinforcing the centrality of God's covenant, predestination, and providence as interpretive lenses through which the Reformed made sense of their often-traumatic experiences of persecution and exile. Yet few scholars have stretched this analysis beyond the sixteenth century, at least until Ole Grell's work on the Calvinist experience of exile and charitable relief through the period of the Thirty Years' War. Beginning in 1550 and stretching through 1648, Grell focuses particularly on the international Calvinist response to the refugee crisis caused by the re-Catholicization of the Upper and Lower Palatinate starting in the 1620s. He argues that what shaped the identity and drew together Reformed merchants, pastors, businessmen, and scholars across Europe was not their Calvinist theology per se, but their shared experience of religious exile and their commitment to provide aid to fellow Reformed exiles across geographic boundaries.

Grell begins his account with an overview of the Reformed faith's growing impact in the Italian city of Lucca in the 1550s. He focuses on the Burlamachi, Calandrini, Diodati, and Turretini families, all of whom originated in Lucca but most of whose members were forced out of Catholic Italy by the 1560s. These Lucchese religious exiles and their descendants over three generations provide the biographical backbone to Grell's work. He describes their peripatetic exile through Lyon, Paris, Geneva, Sedan, various German and Dutch cities, and London, with different family members settling down either temporarily or permanently in each of these locations. This geographical spread ensured a network of relatives across Western Europe, ready to be involved in both business and charitable concerns. A table of the family members at the start of the book is very helpful, particularly given their propensity to intermarry and re-use first names across the generations.

After laying out the diverse careers and backgrounds of the Lucchese exiles and their descendants, many of whom were active as elders and deacons in Reformed churches in their new communities, Grell then turns to the Reformed refugee crisis in the Palatinate following the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War. Pastors and schoolteachers and their families were particularly hard-hit, as these Reformed community leaders were forced out when the Palatinate was taken over by Catholic armies. Grell provides a very effective portrayal of the chaos and trauma of this early modern conflict, and of the plight of the Reformed refugees caught up in the swirl of marauding forces, epidemics, famine, and generalized misery of war. Grell describes the international Calvinist response to the crisis, as churches and governments across Europe made complex arrangements to gather and transfer donations, most commonly through government-authorized collections announced and handled by local churches. The funds were then transferred via the network of Calvinist merchants and businessmen (many of them descendants of the Lucchese exiles) to the Palatinate refugees who had sought shelter in other German cities and principalities. Grell highlights the challenges of ensuring that the funds reached the intended recipients and notes how much emphasis the directors in charge of the collections and the distribution placed on good and transparent accounting practices, highlighting their integrity above all else.

After an overview of major private donors to the Palatinate refugees' cause, Grell provides a conclusion that examines whether the Weber thesis about the affinity of early modern Calvinism and capitalism fits this particular account of the establishment of an international Calvinist network brought about by the shared experience of religious exile. Grell's conclusion is that the link Weber made between Calvinists' spiritual anxiety over their salvation and their commitment to worldly success as a sign that they were in fact in God's favor does not apply in this case, as Grell found no sign of spiritual anxiety among the Lucchese exiles and their descendants. Instead, Grell argues, the experience of exile and persecution, rather than spiritual anxiety, may well have prompted these men to invest themselves in their work, and to foster international links between themselves and other persecuted Reformed believers, links which could then be put to use to provide aid when danger threatened other Reformed religious refugees.

Apart from some misspellings and odd word choices (“the sale of English canons” for “cannons” [95], “imminently aware” rather than “eminently aware” or possibly “intimately aware” [230], “willingness to lie down his life” rather than “lay down his life” [303]) the text reads smoothly, though perhaps a chart or table outlining the proceeds of collections at different times and places would help readers navigate later chapters more effectively. The absence of a bibliography is somewhat surprising. Overall, however, this work illuminates very effectively the ways in which an international Calvinist network became a powerful force in early modern Europe up to the end of the Thirty Years' War, linking its members across countries and generations, and enabling the successful provision of vital charitable assistance in times of major crisis.