Only modestly – on the back cover – does this fine book proclaim itself as a Festschrift produced in honour of the outstanding Canadian Mennonite scholar and activist, Walter Sawatsky. He deserves at least a full-page colour photo, rather than the four unobtrusive black-and-white ones printed in a strip along the middle of the back cover. That grouse stated, one is able to welcome History and mission in Europe not only as a deserved tribute, but also as a broad-ranging work of interest to anyone who follows the destiny of Protestants in the former Soviet bloc. Sawatsky's interests have always spread beyond the confines of his own denomination and he visited the USSR twenty-two times before its collapse. One practical and selfless scheme for which he was ‘project coordinator’ was the production over nine years of a Russian translation of William Barclay's fifteen volumes of New Testament Bible commentaries. This was an immense team effort and Mary Raber recounts the story (ch. xvi). How did the choice fall on Barclay? How was it practically coordinated? How was the text culturally adapted for Russians? The answers are all here. During these long years the Soviet Union was transformed from a closed to an open society (at least temporarily) and soon after completion in 1986 an official message arrived from Moscow, ‘Approval granted, send all commentaries.’ The countless hours of painstaking work and financial sacrifice in the west made the long wait for Russian commentaries easier. Young Russians and Ukrainians contribute here refreshingly. Three of the chapters are, problematically, in Russian, two in German, albeit prefaced by adequate summaries. One of the contributions, ‘History of the Baptist-initsiativnik movement’ (chapter vii) is of great interest, but is in Russian only, thus inevitably curtailing the detail of its insights for many readers of the book. Tatiana Nikolskaia (St Petersburg) has gained access to state archives and retrieved documentation about the origins of the devastating schism among Russian Baptists which originated in the early 1960s and persists even today. She uses these sources to tell a powerful story of resistance to persecution and of the indomitability of human nature. Yet one curious fact emerges. She does not know western archives. The story that she tells – with the excitement of uncovering something new – was first recounted in my own book, Religious ferment in Russia, published in 1969. She ignores the immense wealth of the Keston Archive, now housed at Baylor University, Texas, which could have supplied abundantly more detail. Russians must sometime discover the sources often extensively preserved in the west; western scholars must have unrestricted access to Soviet archives. Nestling among many chapters of rich interest there are a few contentious points. For example, William Yoder's acerbic piece, ‘Correct losers – but the wrong winners’ (ch. xvii) focuses on the dissolution of East Germany. Perhaps one who lives in Belarus and commutes weekly to Moscow might be expected to hold unconventional opinions, but his eulogy of President Alexander Lukashenko, the dictator of Minsk, for his social policies supporting his country's poorest (p. 340) is controversial. He criticises the unbalanced reporting of ‘Forum 18’, but is mistaken in stating that it inherits a mandate from ‘Britain's erstwhile Keston College’.