Reggie Williams offers the reader real insight into Bonhoeffer's year at Union Seminary in New York (1930–1). Yet Bonhoeffer's black Jesus goes beyond biographical description of his time there, first through a fairly detailed look at the Harlem Renaissance and important theological impulses that Bonhoeffer encountered there, and secondly through following these impulses as they continued in his thought and life when he returned to Germany. This study has a number of strengths to commend it. First, Williams gives a lively account not only of the intellectual world of the Harlem Renaissance that Bonhoeffer encountered in his studies, but also of the lived discipleship being practised in Abyssinian Baptist Church where he worshipped in Harlem. Secondly, Williams is able to trace important themes through Bonhoeffer's writings to advance his thesis. And thirdly, Williams shows sophistication in his discussion of the nature of empathy, and how, as a privileged white man, Bonhoeffer could experience empathy for people whose experience differed in almost every way from his own. As might be expected, there are also some weaknesses, at least in my view. One may be a matter of taste, but there are a number of places where Williams seems to overstate the case and the insertion of some caveats would have helped. Another weakness relates to Williams's repeated discussion of Stellvertretung. Given that this is a key term in Bonhoeffer's later theology (referring to Christ's being and action for us, and the need for Christians to live for others also), it is less than confidence-inspiring when it is not handled well by his interpreters. Another weakness is related to the choice of working with the ideological critique of (what in Europe might be called) nineteenth-century liberal Protestant theology as ‘colonial’. Although this provides sharp insights in terms of the impact of how Christianity was received by people who first encountered it together with colonial settlers, and no doubt has much to say about the theological emphases within the Harlem Renaissance, for me there was too little nuance in the critique. Williams refers often to a veil being lifted on hidden black lives, but I wonder if there are not further veils which also need to be lifted to reveal more complex realities. However, these weaknesses do not outweigh the value of Williams's contribution. He makes a compelling case that Bonhoeffer was (I would suggest, at least in part) enabled by his experience in Harlem to recognise the racist evil of Nazism much earlier than most and oppose it vigorously as being unChristian. It was in Harlem that he first learned to stand alongside the oppressed. As Williams writes, ‘For Bonhoeffer, Christians must see society from the perspective of marginalized people since faithful Christianity is calibrated from the perspective of suffering rather than from dominance. This is costly yet crucial to true Christian discipleship’ (p. 140).