Dr. Alison Beach mines the Chronicle of Petershausen to write an excellent micro study of the monastery during and after its reform to the Hirsauer tradition (ca. 992–1064). Moreover, in the tradition of German Landesgeschichte, she examines the monastery's complex relations to the bishops and town of Constance, and to other monasteries, noble families, and the religiopolitical currents in the Bodensee (Lake Constance) region during the twelfth century. The author argues convincingly that the largely positive narrative rhetoric of monastic reform movements—in this case the Hirsauer—fails to represent the vast amount of trauma caused in a monastery faced with “unwanted outside reform.”  Petershausen offers an ideal community for this examination because the Petershausen Chronicle provides a unique account, primarily by a single witness, over the period of the monastery's reform from the arrival of reformers in 1086 to the catastrophic monastic fire in 1159 and a few years beyond, recording its attempted recovery.

In her prologue Beach provides an overall background of the founder, the foundation, and the spiritual and social-economical-historical landscape of the area, using maps to orientate reader to the history and area. Chapter 1 addresses the dichotomy between the positive “rhetoric of reform” and the reality of existing “cultural trauma” in a community due to the imposition of reform. In this chapter and in chapter 2, she discusses the notion of cultural trauma and its manifestation in Petershausen, from the dislocation of half the brotherhood, to changing community customs and ranks of status, to wholesale alterations of the liturgy and ritual—changes at the deepest level. Customarily, the positive rhetoric of reform has prevailed over the negative reality created by cultural trauma. Beach argues that cultural trauma should be examined at least on a par with positive reform in terms of the real-life existence of monks in the community. She contends that a thorough analysis of the Petershausen Chronicle, which offers an objective account of much of the monastery's history between 1019–1064, as well as a subjective construction and elucidation of the trauma experienced as result of reform, can achieve this. The Chronicle offers a dual narrative, one of reform and revival and one of trauma and conflict; it begins as one of success with voiced support by the chronicler and “evolves into a narrative of cultural trauma” (36). Yet in the midst of this trauma, after the reacquisition of and translation of the founder Gebhard's relics in 1134, his humic presence gave hope and acted as an agent of continuity.

Chapters 3 and 4 address two innovations of reformed monasticism and new ideas of the apostolic life, the rise and introduction of lay brothers, and the acceptance of women into monasteries. When reformed by Hirsau, lay or “bearded” brothers became part of the community at Petershauen. While they had economic benefits and spiritual ones in line with the new apostolic understandings, they created tension in Petershausen as the social and spiritual positions of the monks and lay brothers often conflicted. This led to disputes and a hardening of lines. Likewise Bible stories of the early church began to validate the spiritual equality of women. This opened new and various forms of female participation. Yet, spiritual equality never became real equality within church institutions. Thus while the Hirsau movement created double monasteries, rarely did nuns have equality with monks, or often even with lay brothers. Moreover, double monasteries created real life problems of providing needed services and necessities to the female nuns or canonesses, while maintaining strict separation of the sexes based on fears of sin caused by the intermingling the sexes.  In Petershausen, although it offered refuges and spiritual homes to daughters of monastic patrons, women only had a marginal presence in a spatial and spiritual sense.

In chapters 5 and 6 the author examines the reforming activities of Petershausen to expand their imagined community, their relations to their affiliated communities and those to the noble patrons of their area. The monastery's reforming activity was fraught with difficulties from inducing trauma into other communities, to incompetent or corrupt agents of reform, to conflict with the designs of local nobility. Many attempts led to only two successes, Kastl and Fischlingen. Chapter 6 situates Petershausen, its reform to Hirsau, and its interactions in the ecclesiopolitical landscape of the period of the Papal reform. Its interactions, and often, outright conflicts with powerful noble families and patrons demonstrate the difficult reality of life for monasteries and reformed monasteries in this period. This did not resemble the image portrayed in the normative or reform-oriented sources. Especially reform monasteries found themselves at odds with imperial interests and those of their supporting nobility. These interactions caused stress and frequent unwanted negotiation between the monastery and the outside world. Beach uses the difficult relations between Petershausen and the Bregenzer family as a case study for this.

Beach concludes her book with a brief epilogue and postscript that provides a concise overview of her study and findings and situates Petershausen in the larger context the twelfth century religious, economic and social realities of the Bodensee landscape. She argues convincingly throughout her study that unwanted reform could and did have traumatic and pernicious effects on the cultural tissue of a monastic community. Her analysis of the dual narrative contained in the Petershausen Chronicle allowed her a unique look into the effects of the trauma both within the monastery and with other communities and patrons outside of the community. While the good fortune of its later patronage of the Hohenstaufen family allowed Petershausen a long existence until 1832, it struggled greatly both internally and externally in the century following its reform by Hirsau. This book serves thus as an excellent case study of Petershausen and the effect of its reform. Additionally, it situates the monastery in the larger landscape of the Bodensee region and its changes and turmoil during the twelfth century. Finally, an erudite codicological appendix on the manuscript of the Petershausen Chronicle adds additional value to the study.