John Calvin is part of the spinal column of Christian theology, and so his thought has been ‘received’ in a wide variety of circumstances during the last five hundred years. His theology has meant (and continues to mean) different things to its different receptors. To some, it has meant Calvinism, to others ‘doctrinal Calvinism’ i.e. Calvin's theology shorn of its ecclesiology, to others the ‘five points’, and so on. It is a daunting task to assemble a volume on the reception of Calvin's theology that safely negotiates these shoals. The editors (each of Western Theological Seminary, Michigan) note that since, for example, Calvin never used the phrase ‘total depravity’, he cannot have had a doctrine of it. This operational standard is quickly compromised, for, bearing in mind that Calvin very rarely uses the term ‘revelation’, the editors entitle the first two chapters, ‘The revelation of God in creation and Scripture: Calvin's theology and its early reception’ (I. John Hesselink), and ‘Calvin on the revelation of God in creation and Scripture: modern reception and contemporary possibilities’ (Mark Husband). It can be pointed out as well that Calvin did not use ‘theology’ for his own work, reserving that word for the productions of the sorbonnistes, and the pagan Egyptians, for example. Nor (therefore) did he treat ‘theology of’ in the modern manner, as a phrase that can be prefixed approvingly to a wide variety of nouns, such as ‘culture, ‘sport’, leisure’, ‘the lord's supper’ and ‘election’. The answer to these perplexities over the way in which ‘reception’ is presented has to lie in the structure of the book. It consists of six pairs of chapters, the first of each dealing with the immediate reception of some aspect of Calvin's thought, the other with that of a figure or figures at some later historical period. The second of each pair has perforce to use the language current in the period or periods of reception to characterise ‘Calvin and Calvinism’ however that language may have meandered in unCalvinian ways in the meantime. The juxtaposition results in some interesting and stimulating contributions, useful both in teaching and in research. The rest of the contents are ‘Calvin's theology of union with Christ and its reception’ (J. Todd Billings and Michael S. Horton); ‘Calvin's theology of election and its reception’ (Carl R. Trueman and Suzanne McDonald); ‘Calvin's theology of the Lord's Supper and its reception’ (Sue A. Rozeboom and Timothy Hessel-Robinson); and ‘Calvin's theology of Church and society, and its reception’ (Jeannine E. Olson and David Little).