This ambitious handbook concerns itself with a subject the precise chronological, geographic and thematic contours of which are contested. In line with more recent developments in the discussion of late antiquity, which can be traced back to the seminal work of Peter Brown, first articulated in his The world of late antiquity: from Marcus Aurelius to Muhammad (London 1971), and in contradistinction to the old, and for many years, uncontroversial view of Gibbon, this handbook takes an expansive and broad view of the ‘late antique’. Here not only is the age of late antiquity taken up to the period of the rise of Islam and beyond, but the geographical areas covered extend well beyond that of the Mediterranean basin, taking in the Middle East and China. As to the themes covered, these vary from straightforwardly regional discussions to the cultural (education, physics, travel) to the social (the family, poverty, the invention of the hospital, Roman law and legal culture) and to the religious (paganism and Christianisation, episcopal leaders, early Islam).

The changed scenario of late antique studies is reflected not simply in the range of the handbook, now such a popular medium for conveying the status quaestionis of a particular subject, but also in the individual essays themselves. So, for instance, by and large there is a much greater sense in which the process of Christianisation is viewed in more gradualist, incremental terms, in which the rise of Islam is seen as a continuation of certain tendencies in late antiquity, rather than a straightforward rupture, whose cultural forces came exclusively from Arabia rather than from late antiquity itself, and in which the so-called, and probably misnamed ‘Nestorian’ churches of the Middle East are accorded their place in the history of Christianity understood as late antique Christianity. Again reflecting shifts in the historiography of the period, each essay comes with complexifying methodological observations, and often takes the form of a series of impressionistic, even experimental, observations, rather than straight narratives about the subject under discussion. All thirty-seven essays come with accompanying notes, some much more extensive than others, and full bibliographies.

This is a stimulating collection at whose richness the present review can only hint. Of the five parts into which the volume is divided, it is the fourth part, that devoted to religions and religious identity, which will most interest readers of the Journal, though religion as a theme is inevitably a presence in the other parts of the volume as well. In this section particular attention should be drawn to Jaclyn Maxwell's essay on ‘Paganism and Christianisation’, and to Joel Walker's piece entitled ‘From Nisibis to X'ian: the Church of the East in late antique Eurasia’. Robert Hoyland's contribution on ‘Early Islam as a late antique religion’ gives the reader a helpful and historiographically rich introduction to this controversial subject, and Stephen J. Shoemaker's, again introductory, and broadly sceptical, discussion of the historical Muhammad, makes an interesting, and self-consciously Schweitzerian attempt to argue for a historical Muhammad, who is either eschatological in his character or nothing at all. Some might have expected a chapter in this section on Judaism whose omission from dedicated discussion the editor highlights, while excusing it on the grounds that it is covered, at least in part, in other chapters. This is not strictly true – the chapters which could be taken to discuss Jews do so in very specific contexts, and given both the growth of interest in the discussion of Jewish culture in the Byzantine period, the significance of this period for Jewish history and its importance for the origins of Islam, the absence of a chapter on the subject is perhaps regrettable. But in a volume, whose breadth is already considerable, and which exceeds 1,200 pages, it might seem churlish to be calling for additions.