The study of urban unrest and religious violence claims a central place in the historiography of late antiquity. But whereas Christopher Haas's 1996 Late antique Alexandria: topography and social conflict examines the causes and dynamics of citywide conflicts in that metropolis, Riot in Alexandria is much less concerned with the broader phenomenon of city-wide violence that characterises that community's history. This worthy book focuses rather upon the micro group-dynamics of religious and intellectual communities in Alexandria at the end of the fifth century. The riot to which the title refers was the public outrage of Christian monks following the beating of the student Paralius in spring 486. As told in an account penned by Peter Mongus (d. 490), Paralius had come to Alexandria to study under Horapollon, a worshipper of the gods. A recent convert to Christianity, Paralius began to abuse his pagan teachers, causing his fellow students to fall upon him. His beating in turn angered Christian monks who took to rioting over several days. The four sections of the book set out to examine the participating groups in turn. First, attention is given to the nature of the schools in late antique Alexandria and this nuanced and learned discussion represents a signal contribution of the volume. Second, the culture of Egyptian monasticism is scrutinised to contextualise the ascetic responses to contemporary intellectual endeavours such as Alexandria's famous schools. The author takes pains to remind readers that the rustic simplicity of the desert monks was but one aspect of Egyptian Christianity, for many Alexandrian Christians showed a measure of ambivalence towards the monks' anti-intellectualism. Part iii turns to yet another well-trodden theme: the role and authority of the Christian bishop. From the career of the combative Athanasius to the controversialists Theophilus and Cyril, the traditions of the Alexandrian bishop, such as they had become in the late fifth century, are shown to have played a central role in shaping the development and narration of the riot. The final section of the book focuses upon the author and bishop Mongus, whose description of Paralius' travails is revealed as an aspect of his own attempted self-representation as a latter-day Athanasius and as a calibrated response to the claims of Chalcedonian imperial orthodoxy. Throughout this book Watts reminds us that the apparently simple and straightforward narrative tells a deeper story than the proverbial conflict between paganism and Christianity. In using an otherwise little- known riot as the hook upon which to hang the book's main sections, Watts has charted a cogent pathway that allows him to delve successively into the worldviews of pagan intellectuals, monks and bishops. Throughout the book, he offers insightful readings of the primary texts and draws on up-to-date theoretical approaches to illuminate the role of rhetorical strategies in the formation of intellectual and religious communities. Readers who follow Watts's expert curation stand to gain not only a richly enhanced understanding of the riot in question but will also come to a finer appreciation of the complex character of late antique philosophical and Christian cultures as well as the process of Christianisation itself.