‘Counter-Reformation’ has always been an ideologically loaded, hotly debated term -- but it is hard to imagine early modern history without it, and it has become more catholic in the past two decades or so. The study of lay experience has come to the fore, counterbalancing the previous emphasis on clerical and institutional history, and a move towards interdisciplinarity has widened and refreshed the church historian's remit. This companion promises an up-to-date appreciation of these developments. The first of its four sections, ‘Conflict, Coexistence and Conversion’, is perhaps the most consciously revisionist, especially in its essays on Tridentine Catholicism and the Inquisition (by Simon Ditchfield and Nicholas S. Davidson respectively) and Catholic mission as a centrifugal, global phenomenon (Tara Alberts and Karin Vélez contribute essays on Catholic missions to Asia and the Americas). The diaspora of Catholic exiles, neglected in comparison to the Protestant equivalent, is discussed by Geert H. Jansssen, while Andrew Pettegree's essay on Catholic pamphleteering argues that the dissemination of popular print was as crucial to the Counter-Reformation as to the Reformation itself. Articles on confessionalisation (by Ute Lotz-Heumann) and religious co-existence (by Keith P. Luria) address how Catholics responded to the permanent division of Christendom after the advent of Protestantism. The essays in the second section, ‘Catholic Lives and Devotional Identities’, take their bearings from a question articulated in Judith Pollmann's essay: ‘What did it mean to be a Catholic in early modern Europe?’ Alexandra Bamji traces the Catholic life cycle, while Nicholas Terpstra and Simone Laqua O'Donnell offer complementary perspectives on the role of Catholicism within communities. In an essay on sanctity, Clare Copeland discusses the interplay between unofficial cults and the canonisation process. Wietse de Boer sets out a positive reassessment of one of the Counter-Reformation's most controversial features, the use of sensual stimulation in worship, while Alexandra Walsham addresses changes and continuities in sacred space. The third section, ‘Ideas and Cultural Practices’, brings together essays on intellectual culture and science (by Michael Edwards and Nick Wilding) with considerations of music, drama, the visual arts and material culture (by Noel O'Regan, Paul Shore, Andrea Lepage and Silvia Evangelisti respectively). A final section offers chronological and geographical contextualisation: John H. Arnold gives a medievalist's perspective on Catholic reformation, Karen Melvin writes on the globalisation of reform – a key theme overall -- while Mary Laven assesses the legacies of the Counter-Reformation. Essays are uniformly strong in themselves, the best managing to combine convincingly individual points of view with the required up-to-date appreciation of secondary literature. Overall, coverage is exemplary and overlap is minimal; the editors should be congratulated on overseeing such a useful and well-judged volume.