The subject of Trevor Johnson's revised PhD dissertation is confessional change and the creation of religious identities in the Upper Palatinate, situated between Franconia, Bavaria and Bohemia in the sixteenth century, and a particularly interesting territory for Johnson's objectives since it underwent frequent confessional change: from Lutheranism to Calvinism in 1559 and back to Lutheranism in 1576, the reintroduction of Calvinism in 1589, surviving until the restoration of Catholicism in the 1620s. As Johnson puts it, ‘For much of the sixteenth century confessional identities were in the process of formation. Nowhere was this process neat, but in the Obere Pfalz it was particularly complicated, as doctrines and rites were promoted, then attacked, then promoted again’ (p. 38). Chapter i provides the reader with the necessary background information about the region, its political history, economic preconditions and the relationship between the many communes (Gemeinden) and the many fewer towns. Chapter ii traces the development of a Protestant culture, mainly through the efforts of the authorities to school and catechise children and to distribute reformist literature as widely as possible. While this information is necessary for an evaluation of the religious changes in the region, the book's full interpretative power develops later, in part ii ‘The Palatine informed’ (pp. 47–152) and part iii ‘The Palatinate reformed’ (pp. 155–312). Here Johnson traces the step-by-step return of Catholicism and ‘[H]ow this recatholisation was achieved, how a religious culture infused with the spirit of the Counter Reformation developed in the Upper Palatinate and how this change shaped the identity of its people are the questions’ (p. 3). After regaining the Upper Palatinate in 1621, Maximilian of Bavaria and his magistrates carried out a careful but nevertheless steady removal of Protestantism, including its worship services, calendar and clergy, while simultaneously reintroducing Catholicism with its reliance on sacramentals, Marian sodalities and frequent processions. Although many of the laity responded positively to the renewed administration of rituals and objects that allowed for more immediate access to the supernatural, subtle persuasion was apparently not enough. In 1628 Maximilian opted for a much more forceful approach and issued a conversion mandate (Religionspatent), which required the population to convert to the Roman faith within six months. Only a minority chose to emigrate and the majority converted, although Johnson never quite explains which parameters he uses for a ‘successful’ conversion. What does become clear though, is that the authorities were heavily reliant on the cooperation of the laity in order to transform the project of ‘Catholic reform’ into ‘confessional identities’. Johnson concludes that in the long term ‘the Counter Reformation had been successful in reshaping the Upper Palatinate's religious identity’ (p. 313). Based on his findings, the necessary ingredients for this successful reshaping seem to have been a mix of persuasion and pressure, with a good bit of patience added in, too.